Latest / 4-Freedom Podcast / 196. The Future of Fundamentalism - Jeff Fugate and Commonwealth

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196. The Future of Fundamentalism - Jeff Fugate and Commonwealth · 4-Freedom Podcast

• 0:00
  Welcome back to the Four Freedom podcast.
• 0:02
  What a great day it is for you to be listening and for us to be
• 0:06
  recording. Brett.
• 0:08
  It is though, if you may not be able to tell, dear listener, but
• 0:11
  my, my nose, my nostril, my sinuses has been crazy.
• 0:16
  We went from like 32° to 70° last week here in North
• 0:21
  Carolina. 2 days ago it was down to 30° and today it's high of
• 0:27
  75. And so we are back and forth.
• 0:31
  The leaves don't know what to do.
• 0:32
  The ground doesn't know what to do.
• 0:34
  They don't know whether it's springtime, whether it's
• 0:35
  summertime, whether it's winter time.
• 0:38
  It has been crazy. And so I have been battling
• 0:41
  this, just sinus congestion. It warms up and everything
• 0:44
  clears up and I'm good and then it gets cold and oh man, it's
• 0:48
  just back and forth. It's a mess, it's a nightmare.
• 0:50
  But me and Brett, as we before we got home, we just were
• 0:53
  sharing some stories of the IFB and where we were raised at.
• 0:56
  And we're excited about next week's episode as well.
• 1:00
  We hope you tune in. We're going to do some things
• 1:02
  that I love about the IFB and I'm thankful for.
• 1:05
  But this week we've we're continuing our series.
• 1:08
  Before we get started with that, Brett, how is life in
• 1:11
  Mississippi? How's things down there?
• 1:14
  Are y'all experiencing this weird cold thing?
• 1:17
  I saw somewhere like Hawaii had snow today before Denver had
• 1:21
  snow, which is like it's never happened in the history that
• 1:25
  we've sort of things so. That's crazy.
• 1:27
  That means the Antichrist is here, right?
• 1:30
  I believe so, yeah. Yeah.
• 1:31
  The Temple Mount is about to be destroyed in a new temple.
• 1:36
  The red heifers are there. I somehow, I don't know if it
• 1:39
  was because we were talking about Israel a couple weeks ago,
• 1:42
  I started getting these, these reels of videos of guys like
• 1:45
  inside the, the temple with the garb and the clothing and
• 1:49
  everything's ready to go and made.
• 1:51
  And they're showing all the different elements of the temple
• 1:55
  and, and the ark of the there's like they've discovered like 8
• 1:58
  ark of the covenants and there's like four more out there they're
• 2:02
  trying to find. And this guy was just
• 2:06
  pontificating on this crazy stuff about how they're going to
• 2:09
  build the next temple and then set it all up.
• 2:12
  And so, yeah, we're there. We're in times.
• 2:14
  Ready, baby. Exactly.
• 2:16
  But, you know, things have been going pretty good here.
• 2:18
  Like you said, the temperature fluctuation is just crazy.
• 2:22
  Same thing going on here. It was in the 20s last week and
• 2:27
  now it's in the 70s pushing 80. And it's just, you know, doesn't
• 2:31
  know what it wants to do. Who knows what it's going to be
• 2:34
  like for Thanksgiving, but we got Turkey day coming up.
• 2:38
  We had a food drive here to church and I loaded up my truck
• 2:41
  and took all the food down to the food bank.
• 2:43
  And so that was a blessing. I'm really excited about this
• 2:47
  coming Sunday because there's a Missionary Baptist Church down
• 2:51
  the road, Mount Charity Missionary Baptist Church and we
• 2:56
  trade we everything's given. We have services together, like
• 3:01
  last year we went to their church and we sang and preach
• 3:07
  and they fed us. And then this year they're
• 3:09
  coming to our church and they're going to sing and preach and
• 3:14
  we're going to feed them. And so we looking forward to
• 3:16
  having this, this, you know, some black church and white
• 3:19
  church come together. And it's a really, really cool
• 3:23
  thing that the past like 2 pastors before me did and they
• 3:28
  kind of COVID put us into it. And I was like, you know what I
• 3:31
  heard about that? I was like, man, let's start
• 3:33
  that back. And so I called the called the
• 3:35
  pastor of the church. He was, he was the warden of the
• 3:39
  local city jail. And he just retired.
• 3:43
  But he was like, yeah, man, let's do it.
• 3:45
  I enjoyed it. So it was a really name is
• 3:48
  Cornelius Turner and it's it's really cool opportunity that we
• 3:52
  have to do. We always do it the Sunday
• 3:54
  before Thanksgiving, have a big Thanksgiving meal together.
• 3:57
  And so I'm looking forward to that coming up and then Turkey
• 4:01
  day coming up. You know, Thanksgiving, always a
• 4:04
  good time, but man, lifes just going good.
• 4:07
  Things are moving right along. Things are going to go with my
• 4:09
  school, my church and my family. My boys are playing basketball
• 4:14
  and so we was, we was at the game last night and so, yeah,
• 4:18
  man, things are going great. Yeah, love it.
• 4:21
  Now, Brett, the question is, is have pants broken out in the in
• 4:25
  the Martin household? Are you still holding stronger
• 4:28
  shorts? Oh yeah, well, I, I gave up that
• 4:32
  fight a couple few weeks ago. I'm just all, I'm all pants
• 4:35
  right now. Oh my goodness, what a loser.
• 4:38
  Brett, come on, man. I I was getting, I was getting
• 4:43
  looks and so, you know, I was like, well, maybe I should.
• 4:47
  I don't want to be the stand out the only one in shorts.
• 4:49
  So I started. I'm I'm still in shorts.
• 4:52
  I've wore pants a couple of times at the convention and a
• 4:55
  couple of during the convention. It got down like 30°.
• 4:57
  The high was like 32 one day during the convention.
• 5:00
  So I have my pants on them, But now this I base pants off of the
• 5:04
  high of the day if it's if the high is above 40, I'm wearing
• 5:08
  shorts. And so I went to a little little
• 5:11
  Lee's house yesterday and she goes, where's your long breech
• 5:14
  of that preacher? I said, well, I guess they're in
• 5:17
  my closet because still got the shorts on because it feels great
• 5:21
  outside. And so it's going back and
• 5:23
  forth. And so I know inevitably,
• 5:26
  probably next week with Thanksgiving, I'm going to have
• 5:28
  to break out the pants. I just, I prefer the shorts,
• 5:31
  man. It's great.
• 5:33
  So yeah, you had said something that jogged my mind.
• 5:37
  I was going to say something that was about that Turkey day,
• 5:41
  something else. I can't remember what it was.
• 5:43
  It'll come back to me here in a minute.
• 5:45
  But we've got some some big things coming up.
• 5:49
  We've got our Israel trip right around the corner, man.
• 5:53
  We are just a couple of months away.
• 5:54
  End of January, January 30th through February 7th, I believe
• 5:58
  that is February 6th or 7th that Saturday.
• 6:02
  And so hopefully if you haven't, we've got a a phone call
• 6:06
  interview meeting today. When this interview comes out,
• 6:10
  this episode comes out, we'll be meeting with Marcus and Ernest
• 6:14
  and me and Brett. The guys are leading this trip
• 6:17
  up and we'll be talking through what that looks like and all the
• 6:22
  details of it. If you want to be a part of
• 6:24
  that. I believe that's tonight at 7:00
• 6:26
  is the is the call and so am I Awful waiting.
• 6:33
  Yeah. Well, this is coming out on
• 6:34
  Thursday, Brett. Oh, you're thinking 4th
• 6:36
  dimensionally. OK, yes.
• 6:38
  Yes, you have to do 3D chess and so if you if you want to be on
• 6:42
  that call, let us know. We can add you into it and you
• 6:46
  can know all the details. If you've got safety concerns.
• 6:50
  Marcus has been back to Israel even this year and so he's going
• 6:54
  back again with us. He's going to be one of the guys
• 6:56
  leading this trip as well as me and Brett and Earnest and and
• 7:00
  Brett. Brett was talking to me before
• 7:02
  we got on about how just the the pictures of, of pastors that he
• 7:06
  knows that are there on the ground going through Israel and,
• 7:10
  and looking at the different sites and just an exciting time
• 7:14
  to be able to go back to Israel. Brett, I just remembered what I
• 7:18
  was going to say. You jogged my memory before you.
• 7:21
  You were talking about the combined service between you and
• 7:23
  the other church. When I got to Pleasant Grove,
• 7:27
  they did a combined service with two other churches, a
• 7:30
  Pentecostal Holiness Church and a Methodist Church and a Baptist
• 7:34
  Church. It's almost like a joke, like
• 7:36
  you would start this like a joke.
• 7:37
  All get together the Sunday before Thanksgiving and we did a
• 7:41
  combined Thanksgiving service. We added another Baptist Church
• 7:45
  and now the majority is 2 Baptist churches, a Methodist
• 7:48
  Church and a Pentecostal Holiness church.
• 7:51
  And we all get together. I have lunch with these guys
• 7:54
  once or twice a year. We've got a group text.
• 7:57
  They're just right here in the community.
• 7:59
  And so we were rotating between churches, but it has now grown
• 8:03
  to such a large service. We actually written the
• 8:05
  Community Center out every year. And the last couple years we've
• 8:09
  done that and we set all the tables up.
• 8:11
  We do a meal, one church provides the meal, one church
• 8:15
  provides the singing, one church setups and tears down and cleans
• 8:18
  up and pays for the facility. And then this year's my turn,
• 8:21
  I'll be preaching this year. One church does the preaching.
• 8:25
  And so yeah, we're looking forward to that.
• 8:27
  We're excited about that whole venture coming together and
• 8:32
  being able to be a part of that combined service this coming
• 8:36
  Sunday. It's it's a unique time.
• 8:37
  You know, when you get together and different cultures,
• 8:41
  different walks of life, different community style of the
• 8:44
  way they do worship, you get to you get to experience some fun
• 8:49
  stuff. And so I'm going to get up and
• 8:51
  preach the gospel. I'm preaching 1 Psalms, one O
• 8:55
  one O 3, one through 5, the things that we remember and just
• 9:01
  looking through just some some great texts there of praise and
• 9:05
  worship and remembering the goodness of the Lord and being
• 9:08
  thankful for some things. And so I'm really excited about
• 9:10
  that coming up this coming Sunday as well.
• 9:13
  Yeah, it like so you're I'm, I'm stuck in the present, you're
• 9:16
  living in the future, but that's OK.
• 9:18
  So here's where you're supposed to be.
• 9:20
  But yeah, it's a great opportunity doing those joint
• 9:22
  services. I'll tell you that.
• 9:24
  Before we started back with Mount Charity a couple of for a
• 9:29
  couple of years, we went over to our sister church, Corinth,
• 9:32
  right down the road. I actually live closer to
• 9:34
  Corinth Baptist Church than I do to my own church.
• 9:37
  And I live pretty close to my own church.
• 9:40
  But they they would every year they would have two, we were the
• 9:44
  Second Baptist Church and two Methodist churches from this
• 9:48
  community come together. And probably not as diverse as
• 9:52
  the service you're talking about with holiness up in there.
• 9:55
  But it was a really it was a really cool thing for us to get
• 9:58
  together and do. And but yeah, it's good to get
• 10:01
  out in the community and just, you know, get together with
• 10:04
  other churches. And I'll tell you one of the
• 10:07
  things you mentioned that I was talking looking at all these
• 10:09
  pastors on the ground. And so one of the things I've
• 10:12
  been doing on my Facebook because I just been friend
• 10:15
  requesting pastors just because I'm trying to build a community
• 10:19
  and a lot of the pastors and I'm friends with on Facebook are in
• 10:25
  the Holy Land. This week I got a good friend,
• 10:28
  Justin Corley. He's there.
• 10:30
  I didn't know he was going and I started seeing he's posting
• 10:33
  pictures on the ground and Israel was like, man, he should
• 10:36
  have moved me. But I'm I'm glad he's over
• 10:38
  there. And then I've seen these
• 10:40
  pictures. This got me the fever.
• 10:43
  I'm I'm ready to go back. And I, I told you this before,
• 10:48
  this is my last time going without my wife.
• 10:51
  I won't go back again because I really want, you know, I want to
• 10:55
  take Emily this time didn't work out, but you know, I'm not going
• 10:59
  back without her next time. But I'm just still, it's, it's
• 11:03
  always an exciting time to go to Israel.
• 11:05
  And the fact we're going to places we didn't go last time is
• 11:09
  really, really cool. I'm really looking forward to
• 11:11
  it. Yeah, it's going to be exciting.
• 11:14
  Good time for us to get together.
• 11:15
  The Full Freedom podcast again, international trip, great time
• 11:19
  to get together for that. Hopefully you'll join us.
• 11:22
  All that information is in our show notes also on our website.
• 11:25
  You can go and check that out and it's going to be a wonderful
• 11:27
  time. Also got the National Convention
• 11:31
  coming up in Orlando in June. We'll be there at the convention
• 11:36
  being Brett as well as 10,000 other people.
• 11:40
  As always, a great time to get together and see what Lord's
• 11:43
  doing with the convention. But it's also a great time for
• 11:46
  us to be able to get our batteries recharged, to get the
• 11:49
  hang out together and hopefully meet some of you as well.
• 11:52
  And so if you were going to be in that area, if you live in
• 11:54
  that area, let us know and we'll definitely try to meet up with
• 11:58
  you for that. And then I think last thing
• 12:02
  we've got to talk about is our cigars.
• 12:04
  If you have not purchased any, Christmas time is right around
• 12:07
  the corner. I believe if I'm correct on
• 12:11
  this, the website that we've got 16 and nine cigars where that's
• 12:16
  at next Friday will be a 50% off one day sale.
• 12:20
  That promotion code is Brotherhood, I believe.
• 12:23
  And so everything on the website, I believe that's
• 12:25
  including our products will be 50% off.
• 12:28
  And so if you're looking for a fantastic deal for gifts, for
• 12:33
  family, for family members, you're not going to get a better
• 12:37
  deal than that. And so please go check that out,
• 12:40
  support us in that way, support the cigar company.
• 12:44
  You're also going to be a great way to support the other
• 12:47
  endeavors, our soap company, our coffee company that we've
• 12:49
  partnered with to help other ministries in that area.
• 12:53
  So go check that out. It's going to be a great time.
• 12:56
  Next Friday, one day only Brotherhood I believe is the
• 12:59
  code and you can get those things for 50% off.
• 13:04
  Brett. Last week we did an episode on
• 13:06
  manipulation and very well received.
• 13:10
  I think I've received more feedback from that episode than
• 13:14
  I've received in a very long time.
• 13:16
  All of it was positive. Just guys.
• 13:18
  Hey, thanks for the thoughts. Thanks for the just the
• 13:21
  encouragement of what that looks like.
• 13:23
  It has spurred me. I have been listening and
• 13:26
  watching John's friend or my friend as well lives in Florida
• 13:33
  had had got us on a podcast, a guy who does who did an in
• 13:40
  depth. I think it's about 20 hours long
• 13:42
  of Jim Jones and the People's temple and the spiritual
• 13:46
  manipulation that that went through.
• 13:49
  And so I've been listening to that National Geographic does a
• 13:52
  documentary on that. And the whole time I'm watching
• 13:56
  it, the thought of spiritual manipulation kept coming up,
• 13:59
  which spurred me to do that episode, to put that episode
• 14:01
  together. I've, I've compiled a couple of
• 14:04
  episodes now to, to talk to Jim Jones and sort of do a case
• 14:07
  study of what spiritual manipulation looks like.
• 14:10
  We may do that the first of the year once we get through the
• 14:13
  Christmas time, but we have my, I have really been challenged in
• 14:20
  this area of even challenging personally.
• 14:23
  Are we spiritual manipulating people in the ministry?
• 14:26
  How are we doing things? How are we doing things
• 14:28
  effectively? And we got in Jim Neuheiser,
• 14:32
  we've had on a couple times recently came up with a book
• 14:35
  called Boundaries Are Boundaries good or Bad?
• 14:38
  And so we're reading through that, looking at maybe doing a
• 14:41
  follow up after that at the beginning of the year, talking
• 14:44
  through boundaries and having Jim come on and talk through
• 14:47
  that as well to have healthy boundaries as we're looking
• 14:51
  through this series of the IFB and the future fundamentalism as
• 14:54
  we go through that. So thank you for the feedback.
• 14:57
  I've already had a couple people reach out about the the
• 15:00
  availability of the free book. If you would like a copy of
• 15:03
  that, please reach out to me and we can get your address and get
• 15:07
  that shipped out to you just as soon as possible.
• 15:10
  Brett, any thoughts before we jump into the episode?
• 15:13
  I'm I'm ready to go. We'll hit the ground.
• 15:15
  Running man, let's do it. For freedom, you set me free.
• 15:20
  Not for change, not for guilt, not for Pharisee.
• 15:23
  Grace lit the flame. Now I'm puffing peace, cigars
• 15:26
  and victory. Justified.
• 15:27
  Released. Welcome to the For Freedom
• 15:31
  podcast. This podcast exists to bring the
• 15:34
  freedom of the gospel for everyday Christians with
• 15:38
  everyday issues. I ain't.
• 15:40
  Saved by dress codes, not by what I eat.
• 15:42
  I'm covered in the righteousness, washed from head
• 15:44
  to feet. No tally of tradition.
• 15:46
  No man made code. Blood bought my freedom.
• 15:49
  Now I ride that road. They clutch pearls when they see
• 15:51
  smoke rings rise. But my praise still ascends past
• 15:54
  the legalist cries. Christ plus nothing.
• 15:57
  That's the real math. So miss me with your fence laws
• 16:00
  and your extra path. He sat with sinners, I'm sitting
• 16:03
  with Saints, sipping grace from the bottle.
• 16:05
  No room for face. I like one for liberty.
• 16:08
  Toast to the king. Every ash of sermon.
• 16:10
  Death has lost its sting. For freedom, He set me free.
• 16:15
  Not for change, not for guilt, not for Pharisee.
• 16:18
  Grace lit the flame, now I'm puffing peace, cigars and
• 16:20
  victory justified, released. For freedom, He set me free, Not
• 16:25
  for change, not for guilt, not for Pharisee.
• 16:28
  Grace lit the flame. Now I'm puffing peace, cigars
• 16:31
  and victory. Justified, released.
• 16:34
  Let grace begin for freedom. He's got me free.
• 16:37
  Not for change, not for guilt, not for Pharisee.
• 16:40
  Grace, lift the. Flame.
• 16:42
  Now here are your hosts, James Seyfried and Brett Martin.
• 16:46
  All right, so we're continuing our new series on the future of
• 16:49
  fundamentalism. Today we're looking at sort of
• 16:52
  the next generation of people who have carried the IFB torch
• 16:57
  per SE forward. Often times they founded new
• 17:01
  colleges, they founded new churches, new networks of of
• 17:06
  people that have come together. And so today who are we talking
• 17:09
  about Brett or or who have we talked about so far, I guess
• 17:12
  will be the question to recap. Well, I'll tell you some of the
• 17:15
  things we've talked about so far.
• 17:16
  First and foremost is Erica Pacey.
• 17:19
  Now that was an interview that we had a lot of also positive
• 17:22
  feedback on. A lot of people said they enjoy
• 17:26
  hearing Erica Pacey and and listening to his testimony.
• 17:29
  But we've talked about Erica Pacey Chin champion.
• 17:32
  We've talked about Paul Chapel and West Coast Charlie Clark and
• 17:36
  Vision. You know, we've been through
• 17:37
  that. And today we are heading to
• 17:40
  Kentucky, to the Bluegrass State.
• 17:44
  We're going to talk about Jeff Fugate and Clays Mill Baptist
• 17:47
  Church and Commonwealth Baptist College.
• 17:51
  The land of bluegrass whiskey and a lot of crazy things that
• 17:57
  go on in Kentucky, Louisville, the baseball team, the baseball
• 18:01
  bats, lots of things there. But but yeah, this one's
• 18:05
  interesting because Fugate, he wasn't just a pastor, he was one
• 18:09
  of the loudest public defenders of the IFB fundamentalism in the
• 18:14
  2000s and 2010's error, particularly after the decline
• 18:19
  of Jack Hiles, Lee Robertson and the early generation of the IFB.
• 18:24
  He sort of picked it up and ran with it in the thought and the
• 18:28
  idea of we've got to keep this idea in motion and movement
• 18:32
  going forward. Exactly.
• 18:34
  You know, he kind of kind of position himself as kind of an
• 18:38
  Air of the Jack Hiles model. He didn't just want a big
• 18:42
  church. He wanted all the stuff that
• 18:44
  came with it. He wanted the college, he won
• 18:47
  the conference, he won the bus ministry records, he won the
• 18:50
  whole package. He wanted all all of it.
• 18:54
  And so, so that's I guess what we need to start with is we kind
• 18:59
  of need to start with the background.
• 19:01
  Yeah. So we'll, we'll start at the
• 19:03
  very beginning. He was born in in 1960.
• 19:06
  He grew up in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky.
• 19:09
  So he's a Kentucky race boy. His testimony was that he was
• 19:13
  saved as a teenager. He attended Bible college at
• 19:17
  Lexington Baptist College under the name Clyde B Wesley.
• 19:22
  Now, I'm not familiar with that at all.
• 19:24
  Britt. I don't know if you are, if you
• 19:25
  ever heard of this guy. Never in my day have I heard of
• 19:29
  Clyde B Wesley and he was part of the the Kentucky
• 19:34
  fundamentalist tradition, which is a little bit different than
• 19:39
  the way we were raising the IFB. You know, a lot of what we get
• 19:43
  in our tendencies of the IFB was the J Frank Norris, Jack Howe's
• 19:50
  IFB, those, those two lines of guys.
• 19:53
  But the Kentucky fundamentals were a little bit different.
• 19:56
  And so let's sort of see where where it goes from there.
• 20:00
  Well, that's kind of an important point to make because
• 20:03
  Fugate, he's not a product of Hiles Anderson or Tennessee
• 20:07
  Temple, which tends to be where most, you know, in kind of our
• 20:11
  circles kind of came out of, but he came up through Kentucky
• 20:15
  fundamentalism. But the point is, is that he
• 20:18
  adopted Hiles model and he adopted the Hiles style and
• 20:24
  method later. And and that's kind of the story
• 20:27
  of of my pastor, my pastor, of course, my pastor did go to
• 20:32
  Tennessee Temple, but my pastor really fell in love with Jack
• 20:37
  Kyles at pastor school. And he kind of, you know,
• 20:40
  adopted his style and methods and preaching through the pastor
• 20:46
  school, kind of picked up the house, the house torch later on.
• 20:51
  Yeah, I think it's interesting because a lot of guys, they saw
• 20:55
  the model that Jack Kyles was doing may have not agreed with
• 20:58
  100%, but it was hard for them to argue the results.
• 21:02
  It was hard for them to argue that, hey, he's doing something
• 21:06
  here. Look at how big his ministry is.
• 21:08
  If I can go back and model or replicate this, I'll be able to
• 21:12
  get that same type of results. We we looked at Bob Gray out in
• 21:17
  Texas at Longview, same idea. He he had a model what Jack
• 21:21
  House was doing. A lot of these guys, even
• 21:24
  preacher boys coming out of house Anderson, I noticed when I
• 21:27
  was there, I, I wasn't as familiar with Jack House, but
• 21:30
  they had even gotten the cadence down of how Jack House talked,
• 21:34
  how he cleared his throat. He walked around with the, with
• 21:37
  the throat spray and he had to spray his throat and the, the,
• 21:40
  the three little coughs that he had like, like the mechanics of,
• 21:44
  of his style. They modeled A mimic because it
• 21:48
  was, I've got to do these this way because this is the way
• 21:52
  God's going to bless my ministry.
• 21:55
  And so in 1991, Jeff Fugate became the pastor of Clays Mills
• 21:59
  Rd. Baptist Church in Lexington, KY.
• 22:04
  At the time it was a very small church, or the record has it
• 22:06
  that they were about 18 people in attendance.
• 22:10
  Under his leadership, the church exploded in size.
• 22:13
  Fugate used aggressive soul winning programs, bus routes,
• 22:18
  revivals and the very strong IFB identity that had been ingrained
• 22:24
  in him his whole life. Right.
• 22:27
  And and you know, he was hungry. He wanted Clays Mill to be one
• 22:30
  of the flagship churches in the IFB world, and that desire
• 22:34
  shaped a lot of what he did moving forward.
• 22:38
  Yeah, today Clays Mill Baptist claims to run several thousand
• 22:43
  in attendance. Like most ISP churches, the
• 22:46
  exact number could be debated. You'd never know what that
• 22:50
  number actually is, but they claim a couple of 1000 people.
• 22:54
  My pastor growing up would always say great day in the day
• 22:58
  of the Lord's house. Today, if anyone from the Swords
• 23:01
  here, we're running somewhere under 1000 and we would
• 23:04
  typically have, you know, 253 of the people there, but it was
• 23:08
  always somewhere under 1000. And so that was sort of the the
• 23:12
  idea was, you know, you really can't understand numbers wise on
• 23:15
  that. The church became known for its
• 23:18
  bus ministry in the area. Fugate often bragged about
• 23:21
  running one of the largest ministries for bus ministry in
• 23:25
  America. His claim to fame, as far as you
• 23:28
  could say on that, would be the record for bringing over 1000
• 23:32
  kids on buses to special Sundays.
• 23:35
  And so this was a huge promulgation of his ministry.
• 23:39
  The way he reached the inner city, the way he reached where
• 23:42
  he was at. And hey, I'm not going to knock
• 23:45
  it. I was a bus worker for many,
• 23:47
  many years. I love the bus ministry.
• 23:48
  My wife is a product of the bus ministry, was born and raised in
• 23:53
  the bus ministry. You could say I've got a video
• 23:56
  of me as a baby on a bus. My mom's driving the bus, my
• 24:00
  dad's running the program, John's dad's there helping my
• 24:03
  dad pick up kids. And so the bus ministries have
• 24:06
  been a big part of my life. I love it.
• 24:09
  It's not in the context of where we're at now.
• 24:12
  It wasn't in the context of where we're at my last church.
• 24:16
  I'm not saying I would never be in a church that had a bus
• 24:18
  ministry. I do love the idea of it, but I
• 24:23
  think there's got to be the right context and the right
• 24:26
  program specifically for it. Exactly.
• 24:30
  You know, I was raised up in the bus.
• 24:31
  I was a bus kid actually, and that's why I was the only member
• 24:35
  of my family that was going to and I have the churches because
• 24:38
  I was raised the bus kid. And so growing up in the bus
• 24:41
  ministry, and I've been able to translate that to, you know,
• 24:46
  vacation Bible school things here, what not, But you're
• 24:48
  right, it's really not in our context.
• 24:51
  I don't have a problem with it if it's done the right way and
• 24:54
  not abused and things such as that.
• 24:57
  But you know, you know, like other IFP mega churches, Clay's
• 25:00
  Mill became kind of a conference hub that hosted youth
• 25:04
  conferences, revivals and Fugate became a big name preacher on
• 25:09
  revival circuit. And, and even to this day,
• 25:12
  Fugate travels. I've got a, a friend that I,
• 25:16
  that I went to going to try to stay with the travels travels
• 25:20
  with Jeff Fugate. But he's very close to him.
• 25:23
  And you know, when I was at House Anderson, Jeff Fugate was
• 25:27
  a big name and Commonwealth was a big name.
• 25:30
  And I went to college with several people from Fugate's
• 25:34
  church. And so he's always kind of been
• 25:36
  a figure that's been around since I've been in, been in and
• 25:40
  out of movement. Yeah, another interesting person
• 25:43
  that he was close to was Sheldon Smith.
• 25:46
  That may they may not ring familiar to you listener, some
• 25:50
  of you may know him, but he was the the guy that leads the sword
• 25:55
  of the Lord. After Curtis Hudson passed away,
• 25:58
  Sheldon Smith became the the leader of the Sword of Lord
• 26:00
  magazine, the newspaper that came out.
• 26:04
  And so Sheldon Smith and him locked up pretty closely.
• 26:07
  This is a way for him to get his name out.
• 26:10
  Millions of people receive the Sword of Lord every single
• 26:13
  month. I think it comes out monthly.
• 26:16
  And So what happened was he began preaching at sword
• 26:19
  conferences regularly. And now in turn the Sword of
• 26:23
  Lord began to promote Fugate Eclaysinal Heavenly.
• 26:28
  Eventually they began to promote his college at Commonwealth.
• 26:31
  They would publish his sermons and his he would write modern
• 26:35
  day blogs for them, articles that they would put in there.
• 26:38
  So he was a big part of the Sword of Lord because it was
• 26:40
  promoting who he he was and the idea of what he was doing and.
• 26:45
  Of course, that boosted his national profile in the ISP.
• 26:49
  He wasn't just the Kentucky pastor anymore.
• 26:51
  He was recognized as a voice in a wider movement and he had a a
• 26:57
  a bigger platform. Yeah, and then about eight years
• 27:02
  after he had started being the pastor of this church and and
• 27:06
  took it from 18 people to a couple of 1000 or how many of it
• 27:10
  was run into that. In 1999, he launched out of the
• 27:13
  ministry of the church, Commonwealth Baptist College.
• 27:17
  Most of our listeners have heard of that and heard of that
• 27:19
  college. His vision was to trade
• 27:21
  preachers, missionaries and full time Christian workers in to the
• 27:26
  Hiles mold. The model was very similar to
• 27:29
  Hiles Anderson. Strict rules, strong loyalty to
• 27:33
  the pastor, practical minister training with a heavy emphasis
• 27:36
  on the bus ministry, stole winning and loyalty to the IFB
• 27:42
  calls. Exactly, and this is important.
• 27:46
  Hugh Gate marketed CBC as the alternative for kids who might
• 27:51
  have gone the house. Anderson, Tennessee, Temple or
• 27:55
  Midwestern in earlier decades. I mean these schools are
• 27:58
  declining or gone. CBC became part of this new
• 28:04
  generation of IFP schools trying to fill the vacuum.
• 28:08
  Yeah, I'm going to. I've got a couple of clips, if I
• 28:11
  can get them in there. I'm going to put a couple of
• 28:13
  clips in through the year. But the structure of the college
• 28:16
  was very much a preacher boy boot camp.
• 28:19
  There's a clip out there called Obedience is Better Than
• 28:22
  Motivation. I'm going to try to put it in.
• 28:25
  Classes were taught by Fugate and his staff.
• 28:28
  Students were required. It was not a optional thing.
• 28:32
  They had to work in the bus ministry.
• 28:34
  They had to be a part of the Solon programs.
• 28:37
  Any special campaign that was going on, the students had to be
• 28:40
  a part of it. And if you get often pitched it
• 28:43
  as a spiritual army sort of preparing soldiers for the Lord,
• 28:48
  which really as I was studying through this, gave me the same,
• 28:51
  the same feel and idea of what Vision College sort of tacked on
• 28:57
  from Fugate. They sort of took what he was
• 28:59
  doing and applied it to the Northeastern context a little
• 29:04
  bit northern from Kentucky. And that's sort of how they
• 29:07
  modeled their and they're currently modeling their college
• 29:10
  after that same mentality. Right, we also use the phrase
• 29:15
  the Commonwealth was training and generation to keep the old
• 29:19
  time religion alive. Man, don't you just ready for
• 29:22
  that old time religion, ain't you James?
• 29:24
  That's right. What does Brian Edwards say
• 29:27
  about old time religion? I don't know.
• 29:31
  What? It's just a period that you
• 29:32
  overly romanticize because truly what is old time religion?
• 29:38
  Is it old time like Jesus old time religion, Paul old time
• 29:42
  religion? Is it the time of of Peter and
• 29:46
  Nero destroying the Christian old time religion or we just
• 29:51
  going back to the 60s and 70s where we've overly romanticized
• 29:55
  a period of time that we want to get back to.
• 29:59
  And so this is really just a made-up idea when it comes to
• 30:04
  old time religion because how old time are you really going,
• 30:07
  you know, 50-60, eighty years ago.
• 30:10
  It's really not that old in the context of where we're at.
• 30:14
  And so that is a a huge thing. If you get also Brett, he he
• 30:19
  became known for his rodeo ministry radio, not rodeo radio
• 30:22
  ministry, his books and especially his conference
• 30:26
  preaching. He was one of the loudest
• 30:29
  offenders of the King James only ISM, the bus ministry and the
• 30:33
  separatism that came out of that.
• 30:37
  Right. He positioned himself as the
• 30:39
  voice calling the IFP back to old time methods in a world
• 30:43
  where many were drifting. So his sermons, his books, they
• 30:48
  railed against contemporary music, against Calvinism,
• 30:52
  against the Southern Baptist Convention, against the broader
• 30:55
  evangelical movement. So it's kind of a standard
• 30:58
  stance in the IFP. Yeah, I mean, think about it,
• 31:02
  the during this time, early 2000s, twenty 10s, around that
• 31:06
  time you've got the fallout of Jack House and Jack House passes
• 31:11
  away. You've got Jack Scott that now
• 31:13
  gets arrested for the horrible acts that he did.
• 31:17
  The movement as a whole was fractured.
• 31:20
  It's it's busted up. And now we've got this guy that
• 31:24
  says, hey, I'm going to sort of fill the gap.
• 31:27
  And he begins preaching this idea that resonates with pastors
• 31:31
  who felt that the IB was losing steam, right?
• 31:34
  That the whole movement is sort of fractured.
• 31:36
  You got this new IB with the Steven Anderson movement.
• 31:41
  You've got colleges sort of doing their own thing.
• 31:43
  And yes, they're all independent, but the the
• 31:47
  independent movement was sort of faltering a little bit.
• 31:51
  And so he came in and he sort of offered this rallying point of,
• 31:55
  hey, let's get behind this big idea.
• 31:58
  Let's preach against contemporary music, let's preach
• 32:01
  against Calvinism, and let's preach against this SPC.
• 32:06
  And it brought this this idea and the ideology down to these
• 32:11
  common ground root efforts. And he was able to build a
• 32:15
  following through that. Right, Of course.
• 32:19
  And, you know, with that level of influence, it came some
• 32:23
  controversy. Yeah, anytime you put yourself
• 32:26
  out in a light, you know, with with the podcast, with any type
• 32:30
  of, of public face ministry, you're opening yourself up to
• 32:33
  some type of criticism and controversy.
• 32:36
  And so we're going to go through a couple of them, Brett, we'll
• 32:38
  just go back and forth. I'll do 1, you do 2.
• 32:40
  There's four of them that we found and and we'll just walk
• 32:45
  through. The first one is the rule
• 32:47
  structure at CBC. Former students described
• 32:51
  Commonwealth as extremely strict.
• 32:55
  And so if you've been a part of any IFB college, you would know
• 32:57
  this. There were curfews, there were
• 33:00
  dating rules. They had dress code.
• 33:02
  Intense loyalty was expected. It's often compared to Howard
• 33:07
  Anderson into the 1980s. It's for as far as their dress
• 33:12
  and how that goes. Some students have gone publicly
• 33:16
  and even stated on different websites and different podcasts
• 33:20
  about the the spiritually abusive situations they were in
• 33:24
  and of. And I know that the church split
• 33:28
  has covered a lot of this with I think will was actually from
• 33:32
  Commonwealth. And we have an interview that
• 33:35
  we're going to do as well. So we're just giving you the
• 33:37
  broad scopes today. Hopefully the interview will
• 33:40
  will be a blessing to you as far as filling in some of these
• 33:43
  gaps. Exactly.
• 33:46
  And you know, rules and standards and like that and you
• 33:49
  know, that's kind of par for course for IFP colleges.
• 33:53
  And the next one we we looked up was accusations of inflated
• 33:57
  numbers. You know, critics often question
• 33:59
  fugates attendance claims and bus ministry statistics.
• 34:03
  Like I was before him. I mean, he was accused of
• 34:05
  exaggerating numbers to boost the church's reputation.
• 34:09
  And so that that's kind of the claim.
• 34:12
  And you know, from being House Anderson, I can tell you that we
• 34:15
  100% boosted the numbers. We would St. preach outside
• 34:20
  Kaminsky Park and count everybody that came by and heard
• 34:24
  us preaching. We'd count that as a salvation.
• 34:28
  So we definitely inflated the numbers.
• 34:30
  And so this was the accurate accusation that's laid against.
• 34:35
  Them Yeah, The other one was a a 2017 allegation.
• 34:39
  This was a former staff member accused Fugate and Clays Mill of
• 34:44
  covering up misconduct. Nothing was proven legally or or
• 34:50
  or nefarious. In that sense it was just
• 34:53
  accusations. It circulated widely into the ex
• 34:58
  IFB forums, the Fighting Fundamentalist.
• 35:00
  A couple of Facebook groups have talked about this and what this
• 35:04
  did. Was it just tarnished A
• 35:05
  reputation among the critics of Clays Mill and Jeff Fugate?
• 35:10
  And it showed that there was some type of cover up that was
• 35:14
  done the the Baptist shuffle that we often talk about where
• 35:17
  one guy does something wrong and we're just going to shuffle him
• 35:20
  to another ministry, another location, and then he messes up
• 35:25
  again. They shuffle again.
• 35:26
  And this is sort of what we saw here in this 2017 allegation,
• 35:31
  right? And then next is the king, the
• 35:33
  King James rants, you know, fugates, passionate defenses of
• 35:37
  the KJV sometimes turn into viral clips where he, you know,
• 35:42
  yells or mocks about comprominders.
• 35:44
  And this earned him both, you know, admiration and ridicule.
• 35:48
  And, you know, we've seen that on like on Twitter and things
• 35:52
  like that, these rants, these viral rants.
• 35:55
  So in other words, all we're trying to say is he's a
• 35:58
  polarizing figure. You know, inside the IFP, he's
• 36:01
  seen of a hero of the old time way in the old time religion.
• 36:05
  But outside of that movement, he's often cited as an example
• 36:11
  of what people are trying to get away from, what they're trying
• 36:14
  to escape from. Yep, you're exactly right.
• 36:17
  So what is the legacy from here? How how does he begin to come
• 36:23
  back from this or, or what is he trying to accomplish?
• 36:27
  To the best of our ability, we see that Fugate has created a
• 36:30
  powerful hub in Kentucky. Clays Mill is one of the largest
• 36:35
  IP churches left in that area and in the Commonwealth area.
• 36:40
  Commonwealth as the college that's there continues to turn
• 36:44
  out graduates his influence through conferences and the
• 36:48
  sword is continuing to happen. You can't deny that he's having
• 36:52
  influence in that area. He still hosts back to Bethel
• 36:57
  and old time religion conferences and people come all
• 37:00
  over the world to hear him. So, so he's definitely having
• 37:05
  some influence in that area, you know?
• 37:08
  That's true, but on the other hand is this model is also very
• 37:12
  fragile because it's built around his personality.
• 37:16
  The college is tied to his church, the church is tied to
• 37:20
  his leadership. You know, the IFP is already
• 37:23
  declining in numbers and Fugate style doesn't appeal to younger
• 37:27
  generations the way it did in the 90s and and in the early
• 37:32
  2000s. Doesn't have the same steam that
• 37:36
  have the same attraction that it used to have.
• 37:38
  Yeah, there was a there was a actually a conference I was
• 37:41
  watching of him in the preparation study of this and it
• 37:44
  was at a church. It was a smaller church.
• 37:47
  They had some type of Western get up.
• 37:49
  He shut up in the cowboy hat. I think the message was Satan
• 37:52
  desires to have you. You can look that up.
• 37:56
  But as he was preaching, he he made a point.
• 37:58
  And I thought it was interesting when you said that because he
• 38:01
  made it a point to, he said, if you're under the age of 25 in
• 38:06
  here or 30 or something of that, stand up.
• 38:07
  And, and, and he wanted to recognize that there was this
• 38:11
  younger generation and he was applauding, well, look at all
• 38:14
  the young people that we've got because he's trying to say, Hey,
• 38:17
  look, this, this movement is not dead.
• 38:19
  We've got young people here. We've got people that are here
• 38:22
  that are, are, are trying to, to, to serve Lord even at a
• 38:25
  young age. And So what Commonwealth desires
• 38:29
  to do is produce loyalists. Whether they train as a model to
• 38:36
  be able to stay in long term is the real question.
• 38:39
  Again, he he preaches this model of Satan desires to have you as,
• 38:44
  hey, if you follow in our way, Satan can't get you.
• 38:47
  Look at how long I've been in ministry.
• 38:49
  Look at what I've done in ministry.
• 38:51
  And if you follow me, this won't happen to you in your ministry
• 38:55
  either. Right.
• 38:57
  And you know, kind of unlike someone like Erica Pacey who
• 39:00
  shifted toward the SPC and broaden the theological tent,
• 39:04
  Fugate has doubled down. He ain't munching.
• 39:08
  He ain't a changing. That's.
• 39:10
  Right. He ain't changing, baby.
• 39:12
  So here's my big take away, Fugate.
• 39:15
  He represents the hardline separatist wing of the IFB
• 39:18
  future. He's saying this.
• 39:21
  We don't need to adapt. We just need to dig in.
• 39:23
  Look at these other guys. They're adapting, they're
• 39:25
  changing. They're going to credit it.
• 39:27
  Look at what happened to them. Lee Robertson, he changed and
• 39:31
  and the college shut down. How's Anderson?
• 39:34
  They didn't stick to the old paths and look at where they're
• 39:36
  at now. And so he's using this as a
• 39:38
  model of, hey, if we just stick to the old stuff, if we just dig
• 39:42
  into where we're at and and don't change, then we'll be able
• 39:47
  to continue on where we're at. Right.
• 39:49
  And in that sense, he's important because you've got
• 39:52
  guys like Paul Chapel on one end that they're, they're kind of
• 39:56
  polishing the edges and they're making things more palatable,
• 40:00
  palatable, and they're making things more appealing to more
• 40:03
  people. And then on the other side,
• 40:05
  you've got Fugate who's like, he's digging in.
• 40:08
  He's, you know, he's keeping that raw Kyle's energy alive.
• 40:13
  He's, he's, you know, he's digging himself in and he's
• 40:16
  doubling down. And that's kind of what he's
• 40:19
  bringing to the table. Yeah.
• 40:21
  The one question and want to sort of address it like this is,
• 40:25
  can this model of IFB last another generation didn't go
• 40:32
  through the same turmoil of exposure because really this is
• 40:37
  this is what happened. And if you want to look at it,
• 40:39
  you can really trace a lot of this back to 2020, the year of
• 40:43
  COVID. This is when the RFP came out.
• 40:45
  This is when our podcast came out because what happened was,
• 40:49
  is for the first time, these IFP churches had to go online.
• 40:55
  They had to put what they were saying public in the face of
• 40:58
  what was going on. And so I had, I had members that
• 41:02
  literally told me this, that they came to our church and they
• 41:04
  were going to a really good church down the road.
• 41:07
  And I was, I would go not talk to them, hey, why are you
• 41:09
  coming? They said, well, we were at home
• 41:11
  and the pastor was preaching and we really wasn't getting
• 41:15
  anything out of it. And we saw that this other
• 41:18
  church did a Facebook live. And so we popped over there and
• 41:20
  we're like, wow, we're really been spiritually fed from this
• 41:25
  church over here because they're preaching the Bible.
• 41:26
  They're not preaching standards, they're not preaching legalism.
• 41:29
  And so we decided to start going over here to this church because
• 41:33
  what they were doing was finally exposed in a public light
• 41:36
  because they had to. It's the only way they could do
• 41:38
  ministry with COVID and everything else.
• 41:41
  A lot of those guys have kept their public ministry.
• 41:44
  And by keeping that, it gives these naysayers or people that
• 41:48
  are against them ammunition to say, hey, look at what they're
• 41:52
  teaching. But do I think it'll last
• 41:54
  another generation? I believe it will 2 generations.
• 41:57
  I don't know if the IFB will be able to sustain 2 full
• 42:01
  generations later, but but what I do know is As for right now,
• 42:08
  Jeff Fugate, he, he's got one of the loudest voices and what he
• 42:12
  says is the IFB is alive and the IFB as well.
• 42:16
  Come join us because we've got to continue what we're doing.
• 42:22
  Exactly. And you know, that's kind of our
• 42:24
  look at Jeff Fugate, Commonwealth Baptist College.
• 42:28
  In our next episode, we're headed back out West, back out
• 42:31
  to sunny California to talk about Jack Treiber and Golden
• 42:35
  State Baptist College. Which Jack Treiber, when it came
• 42:38
  to COVID, he became famous for not canceling services.
• 42:45
  And we saw his face all over, you know, all over, everywhere.
• 42:50
  Fox News, CNN, they were all running run his face.
• 42:53
  Yeah. So I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm looking
• 42:55
  forward to getting into that, yeah.
• 42:58
  Hope you will listen to it. Hope you have enjoyed this.
• 43:01
  Next week will be the last installment of the Future
• 43:03
  Fundamentalism or the next time we do it in the episode on that.
• 43:07
  We've got a couple episodes in between there and then we plan
• 43:10
  to take just a short break from fundamentalism to cover a couple
• 43:15
  of issues and topics that have come up.
• 43:18
  But we're not done with it because we've got one more
• 43:20
  series, which we're going to talk through and we've got some
• 43:24
  great guests. We're going to talk through what
• 43:28
  we'll save it for a little bit. We won't tell you exactly where
• 43:30
  we're going, but the it's going to be fascinating as we go
• 43:33
  through. Trevor, I'm excited about it.
• 43:36
  I actually looked at Golden State.
• 43:38
  That was one of the three colleges that I looked at going
• 43:41
  to. When I was looking at colleges,
• 43:43
  I looked at Champion, I looked at Golden State and I looked at
• 43:49
  Commonwealth. Those are the three colleges
• 43:51
  that I looked at events that landed at Champion, and that's
• 43:55
  sort of where we fell at. And so I'm excited about looking
• 43:57
  at Golden State next week. It's a different kind of
• 43:59
  leadership, West Coast roots, big production and really bread.
• 44:06
  It's a whole different flavor of fundamentalism that we're going
• 44:09
  to look at because he's not polished like Paul Chappell, so.
• 44:15
  Yeah, and meant listen, you're out there.
• 44:17
  Listen to this. Make sure you hit that follow
• 44:19
  button. Hit that subscribe button like
• 44:21
  and. Share it.
• 44:23
  Because you don't want to miss it.
• 44:25
  Absolutely. But until next time, to God be
• 44:28
  the glory great. Things he has done, found.
• 44:32
  My new name found that good grace, found that healing, and
• 44:38
  the tears fell down my face when I found my beginning and has no
• 44:42
  ending. I found that second chance,
• 44:43
  found my best friend, found my forgiveness, found my happiness.
• 44:46
  I've been singing ever since and by my freedom.
• 45:03
  Thanks for listening to the Four Freedom Podcast.
• 45:06
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• 45:09
  subscribing, or sharing our podcast on whichever podcast
• 45:13
  platform you use. Be sure to join us next time for
• 45:17
  The Four Freedom Podcast.