Responding to AC Media Attacks

Dad
April 24, 2003

DO 26143/90

—To Fight Back?—Or Lie Low?—"To everything there is a season, & a time to every purpose under Heaven!"—Ecc.3:1

(From Apollos:)

Dear Family,

GBY! I recently received a little message from Mama in which she mentioned that it might be helpful for the Family if I were to share a lesson learned. A situation came up with some very negative articles which were pubbed against us by the Houston Chronicle, a major U.S. newspaper, copies of which Juan & Abi sent in to WS. Mama felt that this little testimony could possibly serve as an example to show what our feelings are on this recent bad publicity.

To make a long story short, when I read over copies of some of the terribly distorted, twisted & lie–filled articles that were sent in from Houston, I wrote Mama suggesting that rather than "hide in our holes" (1Sam.14:11) & do nothing‚ thus letting the Enemy trounce all over us‚ perhaps it was time to fight back & sock it to'm with rebuttals, etc. I suggested that perhaps some of our folks in Texas could surface & even hold a press conference or something in order to refute the very blatant lies & ridiculous charges being levelled against us by that paper, at the behest of some of our biggest enemies from CAN (the "Cult Awareness Network").

Mama passed my suggestions on to Dad, & we received the following reply from him:

DAD'S REPLY!

1. Since Apollos is so hot on the subject, we could possibly let him write a press statement, which we could approve. He's the one that's got the burden, so we could let him do it.—And the Family in Texas could perhaps hire a lawyer to read it at a press conference, something that wouldn't have to get any of our people so personally involved. (Maria: Then they always accuse us of, "Oh‚ look, they're hiding out!—They're not facing us, they won't answer our questions!")

2. Of course we're hiding out! With those kind of charges being laid by the press against us, who wouldn't hide out?

3. They would probably need to have somebody who knows something about the law and lawyers who could go to a good lawyer and ask him what he thinks would be the best thing to do. They could tell him, "These are all lies!—Outright‚ total lies! None of these charges can be proved!—We've never been charged with any of these things, much less convicted!" (Maria: Well, that's the problem with getting too much into that sort of thing, especially with their charges against us of child abuse, they could then start questioning our people, our children, & use some of our old lit to try to frame us.)

4. Well, that's what I've always said, by surfacing & trying to go out in the open & fight them openly, you can cause yourself more trouble than if you just let it pass, & let people forget about it. The Devil is usually baiting us to try to get us to come out where they can really cause us trouble. It usually causes us much more trouble than it's even worth! That's just what our enemies want to do, to try to get us to come out before the public & fight.—Especially to try to fight them legally in a court of law where they just love a show trial where they can bring out all their shit!

5. I remember what Fred [Jordan] once said about that when he was being attacked with bad publicity. I asked him why he didn't come out in the open & rebut his critics on a TV talk show. He answered, "Oh Dave, that just makes matters worse! It just keeps it in the public's mind & it gives your enemies a chance to besmirch you all the more!" His final conclusion of it all was, "The enemies won't believe your explanation anyhow, & your friends don't need it!"

6. So actually‚ it could even endanger our budding new Work in the U.S. by drawing the Family out into the open where they could really let them have it! Perhaps someone could write a letter just to inform the newspaper & give'm the facts without coming out personally into the open, & maybe the paper would publish it.—They usually like anything that's controversial, & sometimes will even publish our answers. If they're going to be fair at all, which they probably won't be, they almost have to publish something if we speak up & send it to them. If not, you could go to their competitor, & tell them that the other wouldn't publish our side, so we're offering it to them.

7. Well, I just don't like to get all stirred up about this sort of thing. It's nothing new. It's just the same old rot as always. But if Apollos, who seems quite stirred up about all of this, wants to write something or dig out a rebuttal from some of our previous answers we've used in the past, then that's up to him. If he's got the burden, then let him handle it.—And then he could send it to someone who's right there in Houston to post to them, so we wouldn't even have to give a return address or anything.—I think it's quite obvious why we wouldn't want to give that paper an address or anything like that!

(Apollos: ) So upon hearing Dad's reply, a considerable amount of the wind was taken out of my sails!—And I seriously reconsidered whether or not it was worth the trouble & time away from other pressing projects to try to do a rebuttal to this antagonistic newspaper. I then read "Did God Make a Mistake," & parts of it really spoke to my heart.—Particularly about how "God's ways are not our ways!"—Here are some of the key portions:

"To Hell with the proper way! The proper way is of Man! The unexpected & the improper, the unconventional & untraditional, the unorthodox & unceremonious, contrary to Man's natural expectation—this is the way God usually works!

"Who the Hell do you think you are, anyway, to tell God what to do & how to do it? God knows His business, & it's none of your business how He does it!—So quit trying to tell Him how He ought to do it! 'Now, Lord‚ you must do it this way or that way, so we'll be accepted & people will understand.' To Hell with the people who don't understand! Your friends don't need an explanation & your enemies would never believe it anyhow! So why explain? Just trust God that He knows what He's doing!

"God loves to do things contrary to the way we think He ought to do them! Is this a mistake? Is God wrong? Did God fail?

"You've made it very hard, Lord, for us to explain You to the System!—And why did You have to be so unconventional & controversial, such an iconoclast! Couldn't You have compromised just a little bit on some of these issues? Couldn't You have polished up Your manner & Your message just a little bit so it wouldn't have been quite so hard to swallow?

"Weren't You at all concerned about the opinions of men? Didn't You care about what people thought about You & Your followers? Didn't it make any difference to You, the stories that were going around about You & those men, & especially those women of Yours!

"Do we have to be so completely denounced by the System in order to keep us separate & uncompromising & from drifting back into it? Do they have to reject us entirely, to drive us to You? Must we utterly burn our bridges behind us so that it's impossible for us to go back?—So we'll be ashamed to ever face our friends & relatives again? Isn't this asking a little too much, Lord, to make us such an offscouring of society as Paul was, such dregs of humanity, as Your early followers were, Lord!—If we go this far, we'll never be able to go back! The System will never accept us again!"

So suffice it to say, reading all of this really taught me a good lesson about seeing God's hand in everything, even "the wrath of Man" which He always somehow causes to praise Him!—And I realised that my own wrath & desire to "retaliate" against this paper & our enemies, was probably a bit of the "wrath of Man which worketh not the righteousness of God," & it's almost always better to, as Dad said, lie low & let it blow over, & then go back & quietly go about your work for the Lord, seeking out the chosen few who are willing to follow Him all the way! PTL! (AMEN!)