Talk:Hobart Freeman/Archive 1

Comment to Further Refutation
I spent some time reading some of the comments on Tom McLaughlin's website concerning Brother Freeman. I do not doubt that the people put Brother Freeman on a pedistal (sp). I believe that may have been the key reason why God allowed the things that happened to the church and why God took him home. I hate to rely on newspapers as the source of information as they can be biased one way or the other. Brother Freeman would call them "views" and not "news."

I do not believe that Brother Freeman "condemned" other faith ministers as was stated in the article. I think if you listened to the tapes, he was warning the congregation about the errors that were in existence back then. If he were still alive today, he would still be doing that today. But that is what a shepherd is to do. He is to warn and watch over the flock given to him.

Back to the McLaughlin site again. I noticed that people mentioned about it getting legalistic and I don't doubt it. Someone mentioned about sodomite shoes and other things but as far as I know, he was just emphasizing not dressing and looking like the world.

I have not had the priviledge of attending the church but only from the tapes and literature. I know that I have a disadvantage to the members of the church.

The reason I made the changes as I did was because there is so much negative said about Brother Freeman said throughout the internet and wrongfully so. Theologically, there was nothing wrong with his teaching. You challenged me about his tapes being "anointed". Well, all I have to say is that if a minister is preaching the Word and not his opinions, then it is anointed because the anointing is on the Word. I dare say that it would be difficult to say that what Brother Freeman taught was not anointed. If you could share with me what was not "anointed", then perhaps I could shed some light.

Reply to Further Refutation
Good idea ... Please write your article and then place it next to this one.

Most of the newspaper articles can be sourced through the link to YesterYear in Print (Kosciusko County Indiana) at the bottom of the article. Unfortunately I only have the cuttings for the articles and they have the name of the newspaper and the dates of publication but no page numbers. Unfortunately I do not have access to the newspaper's archives and so cannot remedy this lack.

This article is not meant to be scholarly. It is meant to be even-handed. Some of the recent changes where good, and only needed to be merged into the text a little better and sometimes made a little more neutral.

I am not opposed to Brother Freeman. He was an amazingly gifted preacher who did much good, and still arouses much passion, both for and against. Surprizing as it may seem, I don't believe I am in either camp. I would rather expend my passion on the present and future. I wish the same for you. That being said I do disagree with some of his exegesis and the pedestal on which some of his congregation placed him. Note the double qualifiers.

Finally someone deleted some of my comments in this discussion. If it was you, please be more careful next time as their remmoval can make this discussion confusing.

Further Refutation
You ask to define "anointed". The anointing is on the word...do you agree? The anointing breaks the yoke. It sets people free. The anointing on the word set people free through the word that Bro. Freeman taught. Tell me, what did Dr. Freeman teach that was not anointed or not according to Scripture? You can't find one. End of argument. The tapes are anointed and just because you keep changing the wording doesn't make the tapes not anointed. I challenge you in Jesus' name to prove to me that his tapes were not anointed.

And by the way, there is one more correction to your "scholarly" article I needed to correct...and one more thing that I need to correct you about. Brother Freeman did not "condemn" the word of Faith teachers as you say. He exposed and refuted their errors and heresies, just like he "exposed" the holidays and other teachings and practices that were against the Scriptures. And he did so in the light of Scripture. If you have his tapes, like I have all of them, then you will see what I mean.

I reiterate, if you are going to write an article, please state the facts correctly, or I will write one myself.

Finally, when you quote a work from someone, it is proper documentation to quote the page number so we can find it ourselves, just like you were footnoting it.

You can make all the corrections you want. But that does not make them right. Brother Freeman has had enemies like you in the past. And he still does long after he is gone. But I have news for you. You can condemn the man, but God will justify him in the end. Praise the Lord for such a man of God!

Finally, you condemn the man for his teachings of faith. Why don't you condemn the man for the rest of the teachings, like the overcoming life, the crucified life, the holidays, etc.? You like to do what everyone else like to do and take one aspect of his message and hang him. You have done nothing but joined the bandwagon of all the other Freeman haters just because you cannot live the message that he preached. Well, enjoy digesting your religious pablum and crust of man's religious institutional Christianity. I will stay with the bread of life.

Refutation
I do write facts. You won't accept them. Look up the definition of anointing for yourself and you will see that I am right.

All you do is quote biased articles and books from the enemies of this man of God. You accuse me of being biased. Well, what about these authors? You can write to your heart's content you biases against Freeman. He had many enemies as your research has proven. But that is because they refused to obey the teachings, not of Hobart Freeman, but of the word of God.

I challenge you to prove to me without a shadow of a doubt that these authors that you quote are NOT biased. And why don't you do the same...prove to me that YOU are not biased either and maybe I will believe you. Otherwise, stop publishing your lies.

More Comments
Why don't you write facts and not your personal biases/

Reply ...

If you honestly believe that any part of this article is unfactual as of the date of this paragraph, please comment in detail on this page and cite your sources. For example, if you believe Freeman's "teaching tapes" are more properly described as "annointed teaching tapes", then define "annointed" and support it from independent objective sources and cite those sources.

Author
I have now rewritten the article, restored most of the missing material, and sourced all the paragraphs, so whether you agree with the article or not, you can at least check out the original sources.

To whoever is 208.180.98.25 .... what is the source for your edits dated 10 August 2006?

1) Mine was the article in the Warsaw Times Union newspaper dated 7 July 1980 which you can view online as indicated at the bottom of the article. Unless you can demonstrate that this article is in error by citing a source closer to the event than that I will eventually revert the edits.

The article is questions says:

"The Glory Barn - the roots of the local charismatic movement and the controversial meeting place of the Faith Assembly in the last decade --was destroyed by fire early Friday. Two youngsters were injured.

"North Webster, Syracuse and Cromwell firefighters were summoned to the Glory Barn at 3:30 a.m. and battled the blaze for approximately two hours. Believing that the fire was of "suspicious origin," North Webster fire officials said Noble County police have requested that the State Fire Marshal assist in the investigation.

"Six persons escaped from the burning two-story barn, which is along CR 200S and near the state road in Noble County. Brandon Wahl carried his two sons, Joel and Lee, from their bedrooms, but not before they suffered burns."

2) Why change "Joe Brenneman" to "Jim Brenneman"? Look at the web site for Faith Assembly in Warsaw IN. On the home page it gives the name of their pastor as "Joe Brenneman". If that is wrong then they don't know the name of their own pastor. If it is right, then you don't. Please justify your change. Unless you do, I will eventually revert the edit.

Comments
I've tried to clean it up some. Good luck.

POV
All of the articles originally quotes are POV and are no facts at all. I quoted facts. And if this article keeps getting changed, I will change it back.

This article is almost entirely POV, with no sources. Hopefully we can clean it up as part of the Charismatic project. David L Rattigan 22:26, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

[Untitled discussion]
To answer your question on the challenge: You cannot see love but love is there. How? But showing you the truth.

And BTW...the new title of the book "Positive Thinking and Confession" is now "Biblical Thinking and Confession." Please do not change it back to the old title. Because it is incorrect. If you do, I will keep on correcting it.

As I said before, you are quoting from biased sources when you quote newspapers and that Dictionary. How do you know they are not neutral? You know for yourself that Freeman had his enemies, including those from the "views" media. That is why he told the church "No Comment" to the media.

And finally, I do not need your prayers. Thank you. I have the word of God. I have been taught by an anointed man of God. It is you that need my prayers and those who have left the church. I read a lot of anger and resentlment from people who have left that church. I know some of the things that went on and am still searching. I do show love and compassion now adays for them. They need prayer. But to blame everything on Freeman is wrong. You know yourself that the membership caused a lot of their own problems too. That is without question.

And, until you get all the facts right, I will keep changing the article, or I will write one of my own.

_______________________________________________________________________

I will do what I can:

1) Theological assertions as documented by 69.246.215.52 are essentially emotive, subjective or cannot be substantiated, and were dropped or rewritten in a more appropriate format.

2) The one error of fact also identified by 69.246.215.52 was corrected, namely being a leader in the Word of Faith Movement.

3) The extra theological emphases were included to make the theological basis wider and more inclusive.

4) I did attend Faith Assembly for a time as did several of my family, and have consulted them and several others who did likewise. To protect them from harassment, I will not supply their names, but if you look at the feedback link you will see comments from others.

5) Other sources include articles from Christianity Today, Warsaw Times Union and Goshen News, biography from the Dictionary of Pentacostal and Charismatic Movements, three or four of his books which I have read to varying degrees, and conversations over the years with one of his sons and his wife, specifically on incidences concerning the death of his grandson, praying over the body and clothes at the end of the bed. In all cases, I toned down the details to avoid emotive language, hyperbolae and unnecessary offence.

6) I will cite the sources for the quotes in the article, once this dissention has calmed down, when it will be worth my while to do so, but in the meantime look at the link to the Warsaw Times Union where you will find them all.

Finally, I doubt whether you will accept any of this, as your passion for the man seems to have overwhelmed any claim you might have to a rational detached perspective. You delete what you find objectionable, insert what pleases you, and condemn with generalization and emotion, making your editing more like slash-and-burn.

Consequently I issue you with a challenge. As an admirer of Hobart Freeman, I assume you would call yourself a Christian. If that is correct, shouldn't you be correcting me in love? Where is the love? I only see hate and a narrowness of vision that is crippling. Consequently you have my pity and my prayers.

--Jgk168421 05:32, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I am the one who has edited the article on Dr. Freeman.

I think that it is appropriate that a person who knows more about Dr. Freeman contribute than those who get their information from biased sources.

The original writing of this article did not show "neutrality" as this site would like to have regarding all its articles.

The information that I present gives the article the "neutrality" that this site is looking for. If you cannot post anything that is neutral, and true, then don't post at all.

I ask the original writer of this article what he knows about Dr. Freeman and did he ever go to Faith Assembly. If not, please state all your sources. And concerning those sources, what do they know about Dr. Freeman and the church. Did they ever attend? Or is this article another example of the hatred that you have for this man of God?

I challenge you to answer my questions and to prove me wrong about what I wrote.

Thank you. ____________________________________________________________________

As the original author, I agree entirely and have done so. As a concession to those editors who are obviously still so passionate twenty-two years after the fact, and to be complete and balanced, I have also included whatever they added that might be described as objective. Unfortunately I forgot to log on and have done so anonymously.

--Jgk168421 09:31, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Whoa. What happened to this article? Aside from the factual correction that Dr. Freeman (apparently) wasn't a Word of Faith teacher, it looks like every edit since 2/20 has been pretty, how to say, non-encyclopedic. If no one objects, I think we should go back to the 2/20 edit, and incorporate the new data into that.

Some contentious points: "Plus hundreds of powerfully anointed teaching tapes which are being played by the Lord's faithful servant in a room on Paltalk in the room "Deeper Life and Discipleship"" - Powerfully anointed? Is this really the sort of factual information that should be in an encyclopedia? Sounds more like a plug.

"Freeman was asked to leave in 1963. *The reason it did was because the seminary was full of unbelief.*" - Mmhmm.

"He was not part of the heretic faith teachers like Kenneth Copeland and Kenneth Hagin, who taught the heresy of Jesus Dying Spiritually who are now involved in the ungodly "Laughing, Barking, Snake Hissing" revival." - I don't think referring to other demoninations as "heretics" is neutral.

"But this allegation was a lie that was made up by the authorities. Ms. Clause never attended Faith Assembly so she did not have all the facts correct." - Can this be confirmed? Ms. Clouse is on record with her statements regarding the church.

"The health of some members of the congregation was seriously compromised because of their *lack of faith*." - Or, perhaps, by their lack of proper medical care, as the courts seemed to think.

"the Glory Barn was burnt down by the enemies of the gospel." - I've heard several theories as to the motives for the apparent arson, but to say that it was definitely "enemies of the gospel" is a bit of a leap. Note that later in the paragraph you mention that it was only rumoured to be an arson.

"Michael Miner had Hobart Freeman charged with aiding and abetting *so called* negligent homicides." - I didn't realize that you could be charged with "so called" anything.

"God took him home so that His faithful servant would no longer suffer the ridicule and abuse for faithfully preaching the gospel." - Can anyone verify this?

Also, perhaps most notably, all mention of the several DEATHS of members are omitted.

Hi - A few things I noticed:

From the beginning, the congregation had their own trials.

This isn't an NPOV issue, but by trials, do you mean court-type trials, or "trials and tribulations"? If they actually held trials, this should be expounded upon.

Disparaging rumours were soon in circulation.

On October 23, 1974, Barbara Clouse, the Health Nurse for Kosciusko County reported to a meeting of the County Board of Health that “They are laying dead babies and live babies next to each other on the altars and praying over them to get the live babies to bring life back to the dead ones.” This was untrue, but left uncontested, and ''transformed by word of mouth into an allegation that they sacrificed dead babies on their altars. As they didn’t have altars, this was doubly untrue, but believed by many outsiders.''

First, the altar issue is semantics and largely irrelevant. A stage could easily be misconstrued as an altar to an outsider. I also noted that you left out Ms. Clouse's (apparently true) allegation that a dead child was kept from authorities for four days (to Mr. Freeman's chagrin).

She also reported that “There were times when infants who died were buried in the backyard so that news of the death would not get back to the leadership." However no one was ever prosecuted for concealing a death or illegally disposing of a body, but that did not stop the rumour mill from amplifying and exaggerating the allegation.

Whether there were prosecutions or not, things like this apparently had occurred, and to say that these "allegations" were "ampilified" by an anonymous "rumour mill" certainly does not have a neutral tone.

Other than that, and maybe a few other minor NPOV issues, a very informative article. Thanks for the info.

I appreciate your comments.

1) "Trials and Tribulations" is what I meant. I will alter the article to say that.

2) I'll modify the babies comment. Though I personally did hear the allegation of sacrifice of dead babies at the Assembly a few years after HF died.

3) I did not know about the four days bit. Why don't you put it in.

4) I'll modify the rumour mill comment. Though I did a check of the two local newspapers to see if anyone had been prosecuted and there is no record that I could find. If there is please correct me.

Jgk168421 11:16, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

That all looks great. Here's Barbara's full quote regarding the baby situation: "They are laying dead babies and live babies next to each other on the altars and praying over them to get the live babies to bring life back to the dead ones," she continued. "There was one woman in our county praying over a baby for four days before the funeral home got hold of it."

From http://yesteryear.clunette.com/150yearspart3.html

It's now in the article.

Jgk168421 13:18, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Section titles
I don't have a good idea for the section titles, but I think they need to be changed. As they currently stand they are: tribulations, final tribulation, further tribulations (which contains only one tribulation). Anyone have any good ideas? --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 17:20, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

--- Nice job on the POV cleanup - looks like it lasted all of 13 minutes before several of the changes were undone by our friend on Verizon east. Thanks - justin@69.246.215.52

I Give Up
I give up trying to correct your errors about a true man of God., You do not even know the correct titls of Brother Freeman's books. You are an outsider quoting information from the church's enemies. Law enforcement and news media were enemies of the church and you quote their sources. You never went to the church but listened to others who had bad experiences about the church.

I will stay with the truth and you can have your article which is full of biased lies.

Wikipedia is full of distorted pieces of information and is not a trusted source of information. I will not deal with any of it's authors no longer.

Have a nice life. ____

This article is as accurate and even-handed as I been able to write it. Your personal attacks, intolerance and clumsy edits are unhelpful and reflect unfavourably on yourself.

Author.

Sectarian
This article seems to be written from one side of some obscure sectarian battle. Could we have something a bit more encyclopaediac? m.e. 10:18, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Living in the Glory Barn
I was livng in the Glory Barn when it burnt. It's was my two sons in the bedroom that was on fire.

Brendan and Peggy (Nusbaum) Wahl rescued thier two sons, Lee and Joel from a burning bed on the 3rd floor of the Glory Barn. Someone had set the wood under the overhang on fire, which burnt up through the pantry on the second floor into the bed on the 3rd floor. Also resuced was a daughter Penny. I know who the supect was but arson is very hard to prove.

If you have anymore questions, feel free to ask.

Pnusbaum 23:53, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Comment on Living in the Glory Barn
If this is the case, please add your name against the reference where this is mentioned in the article, to give it credability. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 202.55.158.187 (talk) 01:33, 2 May 2007 (UTC).

Quotations
This is fascinating information; particularly interesting to me personally because I attended a church in OK that was greatly influenced by the concepts and teachings of Dr. Hobart Freeman. Although the revision process seems to have been a bit difficult due to emotional and subjective nature of the topic, I think the revised article is greatly improved. The discussion is excellent as well. Keep pounding away at this one! I'm convinced a good description of this bit of American religious history will emerge. Keep up the good work.

Is there an appropriate way to add this statement about the burning of the Glory Barn by Pnusbaum to the article?

--BeauThomasJarvis 04:34, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

In regards to being asked to leave the seminary in 1963,  I  believe that his church did not receive  the Pentecostal experience until  1967. I believe the reason he was asked to leave the seminary was that  they felt some of his views extreme,  especially not celebrating Christmas. But  the seminary did not want anyone to know that Christmas was the reason they kicked him out,   so  I believe they denied it.

posted by unknown

I took the liberty to make a couple of changes based on the books mentioned in the article. There were a couple of comments that were supposed quoted from Dr. Freeman's books. On thorough examination of said book(s), the comments were never made and so noted it.

I also made a correction to the comment below. The book referenced was incorrect. The book mentioned was Biblical Thinking and Confession but the book is actually "faith for Healing". Please see correction below.

This should not be surprising, for previously in Faith for Healing, Freeman had said that "To claim healing for the body and then to continue to take medicine is not following our faith with corresponding action ... When genuine faith is present, it alone will be sufficient for it will take the place of medicine and other needs." (page 11)

I also added the page numbers of each book where a citation was needed, where applicable. Where the citations were not found, I used a general statement that the subject was taught throughout the tapes. I am sure that will be subject to change, but that is fine. I welcome any suggestions for changes in this area.

I also corrected the name of the "publishing house" where Dr. Freeman published his books. It may have been called "Faith Ministries" but it is now and has been called "Faith Ministries and Publications". It is not really a publishing house but the name of the ministry, hence the change.

On 'anointed'
Dear 71.243.21.111,

Thank you for adding more thorough sourcing to the article...now could you please stop adding the word anointed to describe the tapes! Removing the rational discussion pertaining to the use of the word doesn't make it neutral, and I'm sure you will agree that the word's inclusion isn't necessary, nor does it make the article more helpful to anyone. Ditto on "teachings of Hobart Freeman" -> "the word of God".

Thanks.

--72.86.114.38 23:01, 19 June 2007 (UTC)