Canada Christian College president Charles McVety, launches a rather vicious verbal barrage at The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada.

In his word.ca program  aired on The Miracle Channel and the IChannel (program #403) McVety hurls names at Christians who don’t accept his anti-science, climate change denial; more names in his commercial laden 1/2 tv sermon than most of us hear in a year.

Someone saw a ghosted image of Barak Obama in the tv on the word.ca set. Did you spot it?

McVety, who heads the secretive Evangelical Association started by his father in 1963, attempts to link The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada’s position on climate change with the mother earth movement.

Never one to shy away from hyperbole, exaggeration and division, McVety is known mostly for his rants against politicians and policies not conforming to his socially conservative, dominionist agenda.

A record snowfall has hit Washington and New York and many other cities in
the North-East part of the United States.
All the while the Government under Barack Obama’s administration is trying to implement Cap-and-Trade; a G20 program to force the Americans to pay a tax for climate change

Leighton Tebay rebutts McVety point by point here.

This is quite the performance even for McVety, a rotund Pat Robertson of Canada.

The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada was started in 1964.  The association represents 160 denominations, educational institutions and approximately 1 thousand  local churches. The EFC promotes awareness of social justice issues, encourages cooperation and advocates in areas of public policy. The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada is a member of the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) . The counterpart in the US is the National Evangelical Association (NEA).

That is a large number of evangelicals to mock. In McVety’s fevered, fundamentalist, fear based world, fellow Christians are hyper-environmentalists, scammers, earthies, indulgence creators, apostates, slaves and servants of the earth, pagans, gospel distorters, green gospelers, vile  reprobates.
Pause.
Breathe.
He is just getting warmed up.

This is funny in a pathetic way, if it was meant to be a dog whistle to the fundamentalist faithful, to fire them up, it doesn’t even spark. If it wasn’t Charles McVety, you’d think this was a parody, a skit to be relegated to a late night comedy cable show instead of some cheap air time on a religious channel.

In between copious self-aggrandizing commercials selling Mc-products, Charles McVety who has gone back to calling himself Dr., uses two bible verses in his bible thumping. The verses don’t have anything to do with climate care, climate change or climate denial, but why let the bible get in the way of a name calling, attention seeking rant?

Catholics, Ted Haggard, Barak Obama, Dmitriy  Medvedev, Ted Haggard and Stephen Harper get railed on along side the EFC, the NAE and the WEA.

Trillions of dollars are at stake, along with God created carbon monoxide. And it’s all your fault. Nonsense, crazy, fallacy…

McVety is willing to play a  persecuted buffoon when it suits his agenda. But lately it’s been a rut he’s stayed in. There is something about his angry crazy talk that has a wiff of sorry subliminal reality to it.

What does The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, his hyper-environmentalist earthies posit about climate care?

A thoughtful reasoned debate and deep informed discussion doesn’t put money in McVety’s pockets or eyeballs on his boob tube sideshow. The EFC:

These ecological facts present a challenging theological question. We know from Scripture that humans are the apple of God’s eye. He loves us with an everlasting, redeeming love through His Son Jesus Christ. But in our zeal to emphasize this central truth, we seem to have missed God’s love and care for the rest of creation.

When we read Paul’s paean of praise for the supremacy of Christ in Colossians 1, do we notice the expansive language? “All things have been created through him and for him . . . and in him all things hold together . . . and through him to reconcile to himself all things.” Nothing it seems is left out.

The evangelical thinker Francis Schaeffer put it this way nearly 40 years ago: “If I love the Lover, then I love what the Lover has made.”

Shalom is what we seek. But the biblical concept we call “peace” is so much more than a simple ceasing of hostilities between enemies. It is, as a number of theologians tell us, nothing less than the full flourishing of all of creation – the “webbing together of God, humans and all creation in justice,” as one has said following the sentiment of the psalmist.

In some ways climate change is only a symptom of a bigger challenge we face. We are being asked if we truly care for the entire creation – human and non-human alike, each in its appropriate place and role. Now that is a moral question.

2008 EFC poll:

2 in 10 evangelicals are increasing their use of public transit “very often”
7 in 10 evangelicals try to reduce home electricity use “very often”
3 in 10 evangelicals buy green products “very often”

Who is blogging about this?
Nobody. Ah, Shalom.

McVety uses his imaginings and a 2006 US commercial from the Competitive Enterprise Institute called Global Warming=Energy to promote his hyperbolized climate change denial. The commercial he bases his sermon on is a common anti-science tool of the religious right. The desmogblog:

The CEI is well-known for its public efforts to aggressively counter the scientific evidence for human-induced climate change, especially after their infamous set of television ads with the tag line “C02, We Call it Life.” Since 1998, the CEI has received over $2 million in funding from oil-giant ExxonMobil.

He starts off railing against cap and trade being  under the control of  ’them.’ (global megalomaniacs)

1) Any cap and trade program would keep all revenues within the United States. It isn’t one central program, but a movement of national programs working towards the same goal, reducing C02 Emissions.

2)There was never a scientific consensus on global cooling.The issue attracted some attention in the media attention in the 70’s.The impact of CO2 on climate has been studied since the 60s.

3) One snow storm in the United States is not evidence that global warming is a myth. Increased snowstorms is actually one of the predicted outcomes of global warming. Increased warmth over the oceans increases evaporation putting more moisture in the air. When that moist air hits a region that is still below zero the result is more snow.

This last winter was the warmest and driest on record in Canada. Even that doesn’t prove or disprove climate change. Only as we look at the very long term do we see trends and since the seventies each decade has been warming than the last.

He speaks to Barak Obama, Stephen Harper and Dmitriy  Medvedev.

Obama went to Copenhagen and said, Yes the globe is warming and we can change it so he said yes I’m going to tax you to death so we can change the weather. Well you know what? God said to Barak Obama and every other leader in this world, I’ll show you who changes the weather and He buried the United States in massive amounts of snow that they have never seen before, and He showed them Barak Obama you can’t change the weather…

Stephen Harper, you cannot change the climate and President Medvidev you cannot change the global temperature, but somehow they think they can.”

…only God commands the wind, only God can change this weather, God played a joke on them by burying them in snow.

4) Does the bible say that only God can command the wind?  The passages that speak of God command the wind are Gen 8:1, Pro 30:4, Jon 4:8. None of them declare that only God commands the wind.

It has been proven that we can impact our climate. In the 30’s farmers used farming techniques that contributed to high winds and dust storms. When the farmers changed their practices it significantly reduced the amount of dust storms.

For years we have been using silver iodide and frozen carbon dioxide to stimulate rain. It is called cloud seeding.

He then mocks meteorologists and climatologists.

5) Weather forecasting and climatology are two different fields. Because global weather systems are incredibly complex it is very hard to predict the weather more than a few days out. There are different weather events like El Nino that have a temporary impact on temperatures. However we know that if we change one variable, the amount of Green House Gases in the atmosphere the inevitable result is warming. That doesn’t mean we can predict how warm it will be 3 months from now, it does mean we have a good idea that each decade will be warmer than the last.

I went to U of T and studied geo-physics and they taught me in those days the globe in cooling, all of a sudden in 1991 they said never mind, forget that 40 years past, we now say the globe is warming. 2005 they decided no, well it was cooling, now warming, now climate change, but we’re going to tax you anyway, we’re going to tax everything that you do through this global warming scam.

6) Skeptics often like to bring up the change in language from global warming to climate change in a manner that implies that climatologists have changed their mind. The truth is climate change is just a broader term that encompasses all the impacts of warming. This includes increased droughts in some areas, and precipitation in others.This includes the intensification of storms.

7) Cap and Trade is essentially a financial mechanism that will provide financial incentive for the free market to come up with solutions for transportation, energy and heating that don’t put so many greenhouse gases in the air.The goal is not control people, let alone their breathing. It will encourage efficiency in the development of all products and services which has a great simulative impact on the economy.

CO2 is one greenhouse gas that is essential to life. There is no plan to get rid of it, just keep the concentration of CO2 at a certain level to limit the impact of climate change.There are other things in life that are essential in appropriate quantities, but toxic with too much. Salt is essential for life, but if you get too much you can develop heart disease. Fat is essential as well. McVety doesn’t seem to understand there can be too much of a good thing.

He then proceeds to mangle stewardship and dominion.

But when you start saying that we are going to put the concerns of these hyper-environmentalists, these earthies over the concerns of God, the word of God, and the bible, then you are treading on religious ground, and  you are treading on ground of turning your back against the living God.

9) The vast majority of scientists and activists believe in fighting climate change because of the potential impact on the environment, wildlife and humanity. For most of these people it has little to do with any religion. If the oceans rise and displace tens of millions of the words poor that is an issue of justice. If droughts wipe out crops causing famine or raising the price of food this is a justice issue. If wildlife species go extinct it is issue of global stewardship. There is nothing unbiblical about caring for the poor or ensuring the hungry are fed. We have a biblical mandate to care for the planet, we do not have permission from God to wreck what he created.

Yes, it will bring them trillions of dollars they’ve already legislated  this in Europe and it’s about to come this country of Canada about to come to the Untied states and yes, it is a fraud, it is a fallacy, and unfortunately it has even trickled into our evangelical church in NA.

Before the break I talked to you about how Ted Haggard as the head of the NAE started to engage in this, he gave his testimony how he was converted to it and he started to preach this green gospel as he would say, we know the story, God turned him over to his vile passions, his rebrobate mind. We know the story.

This is the consequence of turning our back against the eternal God, of worshipping the temporary earth. We cannot do it. Yes, we have to be good stewards of the earth but not slaves or servants to the earth.

Unfortunately I believe this is the apostate faith that is talked about in 2 Thessalonians that one day there will be this great turning away. Well it’s already happening, why? Well, because this environmentalism, earthism, paganism transcends all religions, it transcends all cultures it transcends all governments and around the world. We are serving the creation instead of the creator, serving the temporary instead of the eternal and the end result is catastrophic even to the point where the NAE, the WEA and the EFA our evangelcial collabrative leadership groups have distorted the gospel of Jesus Christ.

10) Ted Haggard never converted to an environmental religion.

11) McVety never defines the difference between stewardship and serving the earth. He just labels any initiative to stop global warming an act of earth worship. Is generating power from wind an act of worship?
Is parking an SUV in favour of hybrid car and act of worship? Is insulating our homes an act of worship?

12) None of the Christians or organizations that McVety ever instructed Christians to put the priorities of the environment over God or the bible. We are being called to follow scripture, not subvert it. The bible is very clear that we have mandate to care for the earth (Gen 1:28), love justice (Isa 61:8), and to not oppress poor and foreigners (Zec 7:10).

13) McVety fundamentally misunderstands cap and trade. It is the exact same approach Canada and the US used to reduce acid rain in the 80s. It worked very well.

From Wikipedia:

A central authority sets a limit or cap on the amount of a pollutant that can be emitted. Companies or other groups are issued emission permits and are required to hold an equivalent number of allowances (or credits) which represent the right to emit a specific amount. The total amount of allowances and credits cannot exceed the cap, limiting total emissions to that level. Companies that need to increase their emission allowance must buy credits from those who pollute less. The transfer of allowances is referred to as a trade. In effect, the buyer is paying a charge for polluting, while the seller is being rewarded for having reduced emissions by more than was needed. Thus, in theory, those who can reduce emissions most cheaply will do so, achieving the pollution reduction at the lowest cost to society.

Companies wouldn’t be buying credits from Greenpeace, they would buy them from other companies that pollute less.

14) Cap and Trade doesn’t work like indulgences because companies buy credits from each other, not a central authority.

These people are teaching an Apostate faith.

In this country you’ll then have to give money to all these left wing organizations like Greenpeace, like Al Gores organization, why? Because they say that this is cap and trade, all it is, is the recreation of indulgences.

These  preachers  these teachers theyleaders are saying we have to pay indulgences to create carbon monoxide, something that God gave us.  You’re never going to stop evaporation Barak Obama, you’re never going to stop clouds from forming. We can’t listen to the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada that calls us to submit to mother earth, no way no how no where.

16) Water vapour is the most dominate greenhouse gas but that doesn’t mean C02 and other GHGs like methane don’t have an impact. As human activity releases the more modest greenhouse gasses in to the atmosphere the earth warms. This in turn increases evaporation and puts more water vapour in to the air. Water vapour amplifies the impact of C02.

Breathe, Charles, breathe.

When did tracking down ministerial credentials become synonymous with “wild goose chase“? YaYa Canada

Bill Kinnon

He calls himself, Dr. Charles McVety. One of Dr? Charlie’s Mac’s jobs is working as the president of Canada Christian College. You’ll find Chuck’s faculty data here. Where he claims a D.Min from California State Christian University. According to the site, his dear wife, also has an honourary doctorate from that famous half Catholic seminary – “Canadian Semimary.” (I’m sure they missed putting the hyphen in – it should have been Semi-Mary.)

But let’s take a quick look at California State Christian University, where Brother Chuck got his Doctorate. On one of the many sites that appears to be inter-related to his world, the Evangelical Order of Certified Pastoral Counsellors of America (located in that famous American city, Burlington, Ontario) they have this to say about CSCU:

Located in beautiful North Ridge California, the CSCU is an accredited Christian educational institution that offers students the option of studying for their degree on-campus or by enrolling in their Distance-Learning program. There are Graduate and Undergraduate Degree Distance Education Programs that allow you to work towards earning your Bachelors, Masters or Doctoral Degree at your own pace. [emphasis added]In the next line, they offer a link to the CSCU site that hasn’t ever worked – sadly, they must not have got the memo that CSCU actually has a website up (as of the last couple of months – and not to be confused with this one, as ToujoursDan pointed out in the comments below).

Here’s a shot of their beautiful North Ridge Campus (which just happens to be around the corner from California State University Northridge- not that one would want to confuse the two). The shot is from Google’s Streetview.
Oddly, this also happens to be home to Soul Christian Assembly Church, led by Dr. Samuel Kim. (Poor Soul seems to have some tax issues – scroll down on this page -although they are a tax exempt organization.) Now Soul’s leader wouldn’t happen to be the same Dr. Samuel Kim who has a degree from Canada Christian College and is a member of the extended faculty of the college, would it? And odder still, the map on the new website shows the campus in Irvine. According to this data, the phone number on the website is a cell phone, so perhaps CSCU actually is a mobile campus – meeting on something as small as a Honda 50 or as large as a semi-trailer. (Perhaps either one is parked behind the building in the above image.) Who knows?

I should add that I called the CSCU number on this link last fall. The number is located in the Koreatown area of Los Angeles. Each time I called the phone was answered by someone who may have been Korean and who spoke only limited English. She assured me this was CSCU but told me to call back. When I did call back I got the same person with the same request. (It didn’t matter what time of day I called.) I haven’t bothered to try the cell phone number.

Let me just say this to the Canadian media who offer a platform to Dr? Charles McVety. If I, a simple blogger, can find these details in a matter of minutes, then why can’t you do the journalistic research you are paid to do to expose this publicity hound who purports to represent Canadian Christians. Is it perhaps that you hold Christians in such disdain that you take any opportunity to make it look like Dr? Chuck represents us all. Let me provide you with a piece of information you’ve chosen to ignore – he doesn’t.

And, Dr. Charles McVety, if I’m wrong and you actually have an earned Doctorate from an accredited Christian University/Seminary or even Semi-Mary, then I apologize. All I’d ask is you produce your Doctoral dissertation and the ATS accreditation for the University where you got your D.Min. That should only take you a matter of moments, right. I’m sure your dissertation is bound and on a shelf in your office. (And Charles, please note that CSCU isn’t on this list – perhaps its an oversite and you’ll want Dr. Kim to get that cleared up.)

While you are at it, since your Master’s is from the school your Dad started and where you are now President, perhaps you could share your Master’s Thesis with us – and introduce us to your faculty advisers. Committed Christian that you are, I’m sure you’d want to clear up any possible misconceptions.

UPDATE: Perhaps I should have titled this post, what’s a few degrees between friends. It would appear (via BD) that another prominent brother may have some issues with his academic qualifications. It will be interesting to see if anyone else investigates this and what the outcome is. (If the brother is found to be untruthful, should one reasonably expect him to step down from his recently granted position of authority.) The WaPo has picked up the story on their blog, On Faith.

UPDATE 2: What’s really funny is Bene D reminded me that I purchased a few websites when I was doing my research: californiastatechristianuniversity.com, .net and .org. They are available to the highest bidder – unless you’d like me to grant you a degree instead. The lineup starts to the right (of course).

UPDATE 3: Read Sonja’s comment and that of ToujoursDan who points to California State Christian University Canada’s website. One has to love the food shots for this site. Incredible. Click here to view a screen cap of the site’s page source that has this line in the meta: California State Christian University – Official Website - Official Website, really!?? (Note: This line is the title bar of the site.) Ownership of the site, normally available on a WhoIs search is hidden behind a Domain by Proxy registration. No transparency here. The Evangelical Order of Certified Pastoral Counsellors of America web registration is also hidden by Domain by Proxy registration as well. Not that I want to see a pattern here or anything. Oh. And BTW. Apparently, EOCPC can grant Doctorate Degrees according to Dr. George Madden’s bio on this page. Who knew?

You also might join a good friend of mine in finding the last name in the Faculty list as being somewhat disconcerting / amusing. Scroll to the very bottom for Dr. Young Girl Oh. Screen cap here.

Note ToujoursDan does a great job of following some of the same rabbit trails on his blog.

See this earlier post of mine that features McVety. See the post from Bene D that provoked today’s post here. See Mark Petersen’s post here. Any “Canadian media” reading this: let any of us know if you’d like some research training. We’d be more than happy to help. We can teach you all about “the Google.”

*The Hour is a CBC program that suggests what might happen in Canada if you mixed the DNA of Colbert and Stewart – and created a Stroumboulopoulos.

June 13, 2008
Used by permission of Bill Kinnon achievable ends.

What has happened since?

Charles McVety has not been as blindly referred to as Dr. McVety by Canadian media. He has not stopped calling himself Dr. at his college, his Canada Family Action Coalition website or at his Miracle Channel show. He has not stepped forward and produced proof of his academic qualifications.

Culture Choc found YaYa Canada made St. Petersburg connections (see the comment section).

California State Christian College has redesigned and updated their website in an attempt to re-brand. There has been a change of address, and new phone number. More international pictures are up, donation buttons a bit more discrete. Typos are corrected, the language is clearer about CCCU not being accredited.

The current featured alumni is a Canadian guy selling himself as Canada’s Life Coach and Mentor and hawking his wares; and under calendar a class is supposedly being offered in Toronto by Rhema Studies and Canada Christian College staff member Everald Lewis.

The library contact listed at the updated site winds up at William Carey International Institute. A different address. Sovereign Grace Church is also listed at the California State Christian University’s new address along with Vision University, which traced back to the EOAPC.
The Galloping Beaver has background in You got that degree where?

Spelling mistakes at the Canada Christian College website have been corrected, dates have been clarified and affiliations such as Liberty University and Oral Roberts University are listed.

Background blogs and more

YaYa Canada May 6, 2008 Degree or not degree?
Is Charlie McVety’s doctoral degree a cheap, Korean knock-off model? Yes, I think it is
absolute astronomy: Canada Christian College
An interesting aside – 10 years later Pr4′s sponsor Frank Klees is running for the leadership of Ontario Progressive Conservative Party.
Ontario Legislature Bil Pr4 1999. An Act respecting Canada Christian College and School of Graduate Theological Studies
Culture Choc: Chuck’s got some ‘slaining to do
Red Tory: Paging Dr. McVety
The Galloping Beaver: CBC, are you listening?
unrepentant old hippie: What’s up, “Doc?”
Canuck Attitude: So Many Right Wing Christians, So Few Lions Take 2
An interesting aside – 10 years later Pr4′s sponsor Frank Klees is running for the leadership of Ontario Progressive Conservative Party.
Bene Diction Blogs On: Dr. Charles McVety, Dr. Brian Rushfeldt: What’s a few degrees among friends?
Fun with Charles and no staffers get expelled
California State Christian University

USA
Ethics Daily: Hunt’s Biography Updated, Canadian Religious Leader Comes Under Criticism for Diploma Mill
Ethics Daily: Academic Credentials of Conservative Canadian Leaders Questioned

Definition of diploma mill

A diploma mill (also known as a degree mill) is an organization that awards academic degrees and diplomas with substandard or no academic study and without recognition by official educational accrediting bodies. The purchaser can then claim to hold an academic degree, and the organization is motivated by making a profit. These degrees are often awarded based on vaguely construed life experience. Some such organizations claim accreditation by non-recognized/unapproved accrediting bodies set up for the purposes of providing a veneer of authenticity.

Definition of honourary degree

An honorary degree [1] or a degree honoris causa (Latin: ‘for the sake of the honour’) is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived the usual requirements (such as matriculation, residence, study and the passing of examinations). The degree itself is typically a doctorate or, less commonly, a master’s degree, and may be awarded to someone who has no prior connection with the institution in question.

Usually the degree is conferred as a way of honoring a distinguished visitor’s contributions to a specific field, or to society in general. The university often derives benefits by association with the person in question.

An article in last year’s summer edition of the Jewish progressive magazine Outlook, written by Concordia historian Stephen Scheinberg, explores the relationships between Jewish advocacy organization B’nai Brith Canada and the Christian right. In “Partners for Imperium: B’nai Brith Canada and the Christian Right” (link goes to PDF – an HTML text version is available at Mostly Water, Scheinberg argues that the Canadian branch of B’nai Brith has shrunk significantly, while simultaneously drifting right during the last decade.

A former B’nai Brith officer himself, Scheinberg points to the decision to seek common ground with the Christian right, especially Charles McVety and the Canada Christian College – fundamentalists preaching the literal inerrancy of the Scriptures, traditional roles for women, the prohibition of gay marriage, the criminalization of abortion – and the Christian Zionist philosophy that God’s original covenant with Israel remains in effect and must be respected by all nations. He ably links these Canadians to the similar teachings of American preachers such as John Hagee, John Tweedie, and Dean Bye.

Scheinberg starts from a valuable premise – connections to the Christian right – and is in a position to speak authoritatively on B’nai Brith Canada, given his own experience in that organization. Unfortunately the bulk of the article moves on to explore something quite different – the disturbing politics of Christian Zionism. Still, the latter is a fascinating and chilling topic in its own right.