Like many in LEF, our readers might be haunted by a question that any intelligent person should ask. Was LEF always a corrupt organization? If so, then why is this huge hue and cry?
My dear reader, LEF was not a corrupt organization. It became corrupt as Joshua Daniel on the top became corrupt and his focus moved from building God's kingdom to building his own empire.This picture might look familiar to some old timers of LEF
LEF that had mighty stalwarts like the ones we see in the pictures above has now become a harbor of criminals such as Gunalan,John Raja, IC, Daniel Mani, Caleb Daniel, Suresh Marcus, Joshua Jesudas, Priyanath, Gnana Kalanjiam, Peter Paul, Yohanu, Kakinada Satyam, Nellore Suvarna Rao and Bhimavarm Jayantha Rao under the leadership of Lily Daniel, John Daniel and Lydia Daniel. Now these men that are leaders in LEF are still in LEF because they don't mind licking boots of the Daniel family members to run their fiefdoms. The lady rogue head of LEF stands up in front of people on the funeral day of her husband and shamelessly proclaims that only her husband and mother -in-law built LEF work. If her husband and her mother-in-law are the only ones who built LEF, then what was the role of all these men in LEF? What about Kamala Paul? What about Whitson Paul? Were they not the watch dogs for LEF? What happened to these men in the picture below who once adorned the pulpits of LEF?
My dear reader, LEF was not a corrupt organization. It became corrupt as Joshua Daniel on the top became corrupt and his focus moved from building God's kingdom to building his own empire.This picture might look familiar to some old timers of LEF
LEF that had mighty stalwarts like the ones we see in the pictures above has now become a harbor of criminals such as Gunalan,John Raja, IC, Daniel Mani, Caleb Daniel, Suresh Marcus, Joshua Jesudas, Priyanath, Gnana Kalanjiam, Peter Paul, Yohanu, Kakinada Satyam, Nellore Suvarna Rao and Bhimavarm Jayantha Rao under the leadership of Lily Daniel, John Daniel and Lydia Daniel. Now these men that are leaders in LEF are still in LEF because they don't mind licking boots of the Daniel family members to run their fiefdoms. The lady rogue head of LEF stands up in front of people on the funeral day of her husband and shamelessly proclaims that only her husband and mother -in-law built LEF work. If her husband and her mother-in-law are the only ones who built LEF, then what was the role of all these men in LEF? What about Kamala Paul? What about Whitson Paul? Were they not the watch dogs for LEF? What happened to these men in the picture below who once adorned the pulpits of LEF?
Did anybody ever inquire into why these men retreated from the scenes of LEF? Was it because some of these men were so suffocated by the stench emanating from the corruption in LEF that they decided to leave LEF? Did the corruption in LEF make it impossible for some Godly people in LEF to breath properly?
Please follow us on the next blog that shows how much Bro. Sathy tried to make Joshua Daniel see reason and how hard he tried to stop IC from taking over LEF finances and ruining LEF and its reputation.
If only the founder of this organisation had been obedient to the guidance of Scripture about the establishment of independently governed and financed local churches, and if only Mr. N. Daniel had studied, and then taught Christian converts, how they themselves should appoint and induct their own leaders, then there would have been no room for the dynastic succession and domination of an apostate ' international leader', and no room for the subsequent kind of widespread corruption we are discovering and acknowledging here.
ReplyDeleteBe careful not to ignore the root causes. Mr. N. Daniel may not have instigated or shared in his son's misdeeds, but he must bear some of the responsibility for what has happened, if only through ignorance of 'the whole counsel of God'. It is so important to study the principles of the Word for oneself, and not just rely on what someone else may (or in this case may not) teach.
In a normal church (i.e. local Body of Christ) a corrupt pastor or elder or deacon may be removed from office by the prayerful majority vote of the local church membership - just as he should have been appointed in the first place by that same majority vote. In order to be able to conduct such matters in a proper way, there should exist a record of those who have, on profession of faith and after due examination, been formally admitted to voting membership.
No wonder Joshua Daniel despised what he termed 'committees', but what in reality would be elderships and diaconates in local congregations which would rightly take his unbiblical power from him and exercise a truly Biblical leadership!
It would be unwise to think that simply by getting rid of the Daniels and their acolytes you will finally resolve the problems of the people who worship with, and give tithes to, LEF. Unless congregations are properly instructed about the doctrine of the Church, and encouraged to take responsibility for all that happens in the group in which they meet, 'Another Daniel' (irony!) will in due course arise, and the rot will begin all over again under a different guise.
Voting in churches like the Church of South India can also be a big mess. Paul was not elected by man but most of the New Testament theology came through Paul!
DeleteSuniemi: Paul was not elected by local church members because he was an apostle whom Jesus personally called, as he called the other apostles, to play a major part in the inception of that New Testament Church. Exceptional times. However he still had to go through an acceptance procedure involving the existing church members in Jerusalem.
DeleteThe option to localised voting is an episcopal system through which church leaders outside of the local fellowships appoint pastors and impose them on local churches, hence vicars in the Anglican system. Whilst initially that may have happened at the inception of the early church, i.e. Paul appointed men to stay behind and look after the new congregations, the pastoral and other epistles seem to indicate that the norm would be local church government and a locally selected leadership. The episcopal system doesn't seem to work in the Anglican Church very well, as so many of these churches are now liberal and non-biblical in their theology; a largely evangelical congregation could have a liberal vicar imposed upon it. I am not entirely familiar with the evangelical Presbyterian system, which seems to work better.
The point is that no one man should be given overall authority. A pastor is a teaching elder with additional responsibilities, not a dictator or the Pope of Rome! He is as subject to local church discipline as the humblest church member....in fact more so, since he is supposed to be an example to the flock. Joshua Daniel's 'international authority' and lack of accountability was unbiblical and engineered by man, not God.......just like that of the Pope!
Sorry, I am not familiar with the Church of South India as yet. Sounds as if it might be a little like an Anglican denomination, or the national Evangelischekirche in Germany. I shall google it, but even if it does make a mess of its voting, that surely does not mean that we should discard the general principle?
One cannot be adamant about how, exactly, everything should happen in terms of local church government, but one can certainly be sure about what should not be happening - the rise to unbiblical and latterly ungodly power of a man like Joshua Daniel, and now of other members of his immediate family. How to prevent this? What I think is clear from Scripture is that there should be local fellowships, and that they should be self-supporting and self-governing, whilst maintaining brotherly and supportive relationships with other like-minded local fellowships. Even in the early church we read of individual fellowships sending gifts to other fellowships, and to the apostles and to their missionary companions; judging by Paul's expressions of gratitude such gifts were spontaneous and voluntary and were sent as a result of the agreement of the members of the giving church. Quite how that agreement was obtained (and opinions must have been sought and expressed in some discernible way in those days) I do not know, personally, but the common way of obtaining a mandate from a body of responsible people is by some kind of tangible and visible means a.k.a. a vote!
This kind of discussion between us, conducted with mutual respect, and prompted by a desire to get to the bottom of how the Lord would have His church governed ( based on principles discerned from His Word) is precisely what LEF worshippers need be engaging in, instead of blindly accepting the dubious dictates of one self-appointed 'leader' and his personally selected acolytes!
The Church of South India is very similar to the Anglican system. People do not directly elect their pastors. I am not an expert in the election system of the CSI but it is common knowledge that politics and caste plays a major role and many are disgusted by it. Since CSI is a big church organisation, when you speak about Church election, their election immediately comes to my mind and probably the mind of most South Indian Christians. Joshua Daniel probably has contempt for committees due to the typical mess surrounding such committees in Indian churches. He may have had noble goals to avoid such mess but surely he went the wrong route.
DeleteI am not aware of flourishing churches in South India where this ideal form of Church government is practised. The intention of my post was not to discredit election but to be realistic. You are obviously not Indian and so are speaking in theory. In my opinion, many Church members are not mature and professional. Therefore they would vote for people of their own caste or for other ignoble reasons. This would create a different set of problems. So although the system followed in LEF is wrong, practical alternates don’t seem to be as easy as you feel.
If people have experience of churches that are following the ideal proposed by “Anonymous”, please feel give me your comments lest I turn out unduly pessimistic.
Despite the administrative pattern suggested and implemented by apostles in the early church, and the places where it has been continued in ever since, they are NOT WITHOUT MISTAKES. So, the point is – Satan does his work when the work of God is in progress. No point blaming someone ONLY for this. It was there throughout history, and will be there in future until the Lord returns.
DeleteThere is a difference between "administrative mistakes and pre - meditated crimes. What we are seeing in LEF today are crimes that punishable by the law of the land
DeleteSuniemi, Anonymous: please forgive me if I gave the impression of being simplistic re church government in India. Yes, I am very ignorant about the 'church' situation there. However I still feel that the Biblical pattern of government should be discerned as far as possible, and put into practice, no matter what the national characteristics of the congregation. After all the Bible is intended for all people at all times, and the early churches started by Paul and the other apostles were ethnically diverse too. Yes, sin will always creep in no matter what, because we are sinfully inclined.....we don't become perfect following conversion (despite what Wesley thought in his later years!); but surely the more we try to follow God's instructions in both our personal and church life, the more likely we are to be able to avoid it?
DeleteI think a crucial factor is the spiritual maturity of those who attempt to put biblical leadership into practice. My experience of the LEF is that little or no systematic/Biblical theology was taught, and that converts were nurtured (if that is the right word!) on a diet of 'how to be good and obey what I tell you'. I even remember that healthy discussion was frowned upon, even though it is plain that in the early church this happened a lot, and as a result heresies and apostasies were identified, and the different Creeds were developed.
In a normal 'missionary' situation those who brought the Gospel would make sure that converts were properly taught in such matters before suggesting to them that the time had come to think about appointing their own leadership. That was what I observed in North Africa, where, although its tribes do not have a caste system as in India, they do have problems peculiar to them which are not usually experienced in European fellowships. The missionaries there made mistakes, but they did encourage the institution and growth of indigenous, self-financing, self-governing local churches. I may have been ill-informed, but I encountered no evidence of Mr. N. Daniel encouraging a study of the Biblical theology which would lead to the development of such churches, or actually encouraging the bringing about of local Christian leaderships which were independent of his jurisdiction. Although he died at a relatively young age, he would have had time during his ministry at least to begin to bring this about.
In the UK I think it is true to say that most local churches which are seriously evangelical and Bible-believing are independent of outside interference in matters of government and leadership. They tend not to belong to 'denominations', but might have loose affiliations with other like-minded groups for the purpose of mutual support and extended fellowship opportunities. However I did have a Brit. friend who lived in Bangalore for a while, and she did have a problem with finding such a fellowship, so I am not surprised that you think they are rare or even non-existent. Good opportunity to rectify this lack, people!
Thank you for the interesting info. re the Church of South India. They don't tell you about the darker side on Wikipedia!
dear friend, why have you exempted SD Gunalan from your list of criminals? Is he yr friend? Since the beginning of this blog it is well observed by Andhra People.
ReplyDeleteNone of these LEF rogues are our friends. We are not trying to protect or defend anyone of these criminals. It was just an oversight that we missed Gunanlan, Kakinada Satyam, Nellore Suvarna Rao and Caleb Daniel. We have updated those names.
DeleteI have learnt from reliable sources that there is an effort to build a Kamma lobby Group .The people you mentioned baring calu and Devaprasad Guna are part of that group.
DeleteWhat is Kamma?
DeleteIt is a name of a caste from the Southern state of India, Andhra Pradesh
DeleteThere is a Big Chamcha Washington in Chennai LEF.This man was always buttering IC.In addition he belongs to the Nadar Caste(the caste of Lily Daniel).I heard that he was deputed to preach in North East India during Christmas time.
DeleteWhile we don't wish to look at the past of people it is shocking to see boot polishers like John Raja ,Washington and Commision Caleb getting limelight whereas sincere field workers are ignored.
what about satyam from Kakinada?
ReplyDeleteGood to see the photos of the Good old Days of LEF.I liked the last photo of Mrs.Betty Lou mills ,Bro.Jobdas Daniel Garu and Bro.Sathy.
ReplyDeleteJobdas Brother used to be in charge of registrations,train ticket bookings .Sathy brother used to translate plus drive the JD family.
These two Indian Gentlemen were extremely important pillars of LEF till 2000.The politicians plotted and saw their back.They may not be closely associated with LEF now but they are revered by all oldtimers.
I do not think it is Betty Lou.
ReplyDeleteWhat about Dhamodhar & Prasanna kumar ? Why did you missed him ?? oo adhmi bhi include karo in the list.. who are spoiling fellowship and making it Sinking ship
ReplyDeleteEveryone close to LD should be in the list. They are not there without hurting the true builders of LEF
DeleteMost of the Evangelists of LEF today are hirelings or Bootlickers.These fellows neither now the word of God nor have any values.They just wish to wash the bottoms of the Daniels to keep their place secure.
ReplyDeleteer JD was shamelessly propagating to the world that he is proudly humble,Rich but yet poor.
The germans believed his stories for 30 years but finally said enough and banned him from LEF Germany.
India wake up.
What, exactly, has happened in Germany? I heard from a German attender some 8 years ago that the German fellowship wrote to JD asking him not to attend its retreat, but I do not know what has happened since. There are still Germans n the UK who, as far as I am aware, continued to be subservient to JD .
DeleteWe hope someone from Germany can throw some light on this
Delete