I’ve attended Calvary Chapel Lebanon since grade school. I never dug into the history of Calvary Chapel Lebanon. I have never looked for skeletons to be drug out of anyone’s closet. Your counseling has muddied the waters of memory. If any abuse at all did occur, you drug it into the present of the late 90’s-early 2000’s, expanding the trauma to now include a family of generational satanists, and a wide ranging conspiracy. And from here you have continuing dragging this trauma onwards into the future.

Thom, when you told all of this in a discipleship class, you are the one who brought the past forward, and forced me to take a look at claims of horrific abuse you want me to believe are true. Think through your own thoughts logically. If these people are “generational satanists”, and have raped and murdered children, did they all of a sudden just stop?

Thom, for many years, has emphasized “submission to authority.” Have a question about what you should do? Ask your “God given authority.” You don’t even have to worry about the outcome. God will honor your submission to authority. But who defines submission? Who defines authority? When I defended my conduct in youth group, Thom said I should not have defended myself. I should simply submit. I should not even offer suggestions of improvement. I shouldn’t criticize. Right before I left the church, on a guy’s youth retreat, middle schoolers and high schoolers were encouraged to confess and discuss sexual sins, including masturbation. I was very disturbed by this. And yet to question this would be a rebellion on my part in Thom’s eyes. And in my final meeting, I was accused of rebellion, even in mentioning this. I was in the middle of bringing forth my SRA investigation, and could not bring this criticism forward to the youth leaders, and to ask for change. It is not rebellion to defend my legacy of service at your church. It is not rebellion to question your personal portrayal of the legacies of local families.

Thom said I need to “get under an authority” in questioning him. Looking back, I see this as a further manipulation of my religious upbringing in the church in an attempt to silence me, and I think it’s taken me a long time to bring all this out because I had to break free of this authority doctrine I had grown up listening to.

Since I am not in a position of authority over Thom, he doesn’t have to listen to me at all. But as far as I can tell, there is no authority for Thom Keller as head of the church.

When I interviewed Bob Krouse in person, he stated, as the head pastor of Cornerstone(which would make him Thom’s authority), that he felt Thom did not regard him as his authority.

Bob Krouse, On Authority:

I appreciated many of the things Thom brought to the ministry of Cornerstone Christian Fellowship, but there were several things that we didn’t agree on and those things eventually led Thom to end his relationship with Cornerstone and start Calvary Chapel in Lebanon. To better understand the doctrine of authority Thom espoused, read Wikipedia’s page on Bill Gothard’s Basic Youth Conflicts seminar. Thom both attended and encouraged others to attend those seminars. He became a strong advocate of Gothard’s teaching about authority. Back in the 80’s Gothard became America’s ultra-conservative Christian authority on authority. Tens of thousand’s of people attended Gothard’s seminars.

Also, as Thom’s authority figure. Bob, as a good pastor, looked into the claims of satanic ritual abuse.

Bob Krouse, on Satanic Ritual Abuse:

I did spend a great deal of time investigating the claims of SRA and was unable to arrive at any clear conclusions. My investigation begged more questions than providing answers. In the gospels, Jesus mentions evil spirits and demonic powers more than 100 times. Referring to these powers in John 10:10 Jesus says, “The thief comes only to kill and steal and destroy. I came that you might have life and have it abundantly.” I believe what Jesus said. We live in a world where the presence of evil kills, steals and destroys. Unfortunately, this evil presence is shrouded , slippery, streetwise and continually changing in appearance and approach. I believe the SRA folks have sought to create a system that attempts to codify and collate what is veiled by the darkness in which it operates. So, at best, the SRA formulae is very hit or miss and at worst it is a human contrivance that attempts to neatly package a comprehensive strategy for herding cats.

I asked Bob about Theophostics. In the memory of our conversation, I initially characterized his view of theophostics as unhelpful and highly critical. This is not entirely true. It should be noted though that Thom and Duane both represented Theophostics as good and fine to do. It should be noted I expressed my concerns very much in the same way Bob did and was mocked. Once again, a relationship has been fractured. The below paragraph details his thoughts on Theophostics.

Bob Krouse, on Theophostics

I had serious misgivings about what was then called Theophostic counseling. Ed Smith has since changed the name to Theophostic Prayer Ministry, and I think he has attempted to cleanup some of the issues that created misgivings about Theophostic counseling. In 2008 Fernando Garzon, an associate professor at Liberty University published a book outlining his two year long outcomes-based case study research project that evaluated TPM. I haven’t read the book, but an article I read about his book suggests that Garzon’s study provides evidence that TPM treatment has resulted in symptom reductions. Even so, Garzon agrees that additional research with control group studies is needed. However, 20 years ago, I had several serious concerns about TC (Theophostic counseling). After reading the material provided by Ed Smith and meeting with a TC practitioner and being approached by a number of those had undergone TC and were disappointed with the outcome, I decided to meet with Thom to share my concerns. I didn’t tell Thom to “Stop counseling people.” I shared my deep concerns about TC and asked him to seriously consider my misgivings. That meeting didn’t end well, but in a subsequent meeting some time later, Thom told me that he and Sue weren’t doing TC. I did speak to one person who seemed to have significant symptom reduction following her TC sessions with Thom and Sue. And while most of the people who did TC were disappointed by the lack of results, I didn’t encounter any who seemed to be damaged any the experience. Nevertheless, this was one of the issues that fractured our relationship.

Thom states he is under the authority of Joe Foscht, and yet when I attempted to contact Joe Foscht, Jerry Paradise stated – “We have no authority to tell Thom what to do.” I have never been able to speak to Joe Foscht.