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To: All Who Love the God of Truth, Righteousness, and Mercy and Have BREAKING THE SILENCE: A RESPONSE TO BILL ALNOR’S CRUSADE AGAINST CRI by Elliot Miller ©2010 Christian Research Institute Contents Chapter Summaries 4 Introduction: Why This Book? 14 PART ONE: THE VITAL ROLE OF CRI Chapter One: The Vision of CRI 19 Chapter Two: The Fruit of CRI 24 PART TWO: BILL ALNOR’S HISTORY WITH CRI Chapter Three: Alnor as News Editor 29 Chapter Four: Alnor as Director of EMNR 46 Chapter Five: Alnor as Relentless Opponent of CRI 59 PART THREE: ANSWERING ALNOR’S ALLEGATIONS Chapter Six: Mail Fraud? 62 Chapter Seven: Abuse of Funds? 77 Chapter Eight: Plagiarism? 87 2 Conclusion: Consider the Source 128 Appendix A: Is Hank Hanegraaff the Rightful Successor of Walter Martin? 130 Appendix B: The Martin Family’s Controversy with CRI: An Inside Perspective by Cindee Martin Morgan and Rick Morgan 140 Appendix C: E.E. and PWT Tables of Contents 163 Appendix D: Setting the Record Straight 167 3 CHAPTER SUMMARIES Introduction: Why This Book? Over the past thirteen years the integrity of the Christian Research Institute (CRI) and its president, Hank Hanegraaff, have been subjected to sustained Internet, media, and word-of-mouth attacks that have largely become the mission of one man: William M. “Bill” Alnor. While Alnor has not been successful at utterly destroying CRI, he has been successful at keeping the perception of controversy alive, and through this he has also been successful at eroding our influence in the body of Christ and our financial support. Some time ago it reached a point where there were so many allegations that we could not possibly answer all of them, but we do want to provide concerned and conscientious individuals with enough information to see that the allegations can be satisfactorily answered. Although responding to Bill Alnor is the immediate purpose of this book, it also provides a highly instructive case study in errors to avoid when pursuing both discernment ministry and Christian journalism. Chapter One: The Vision of CRI The Christian Research Institute was founded by Dr. Walter Martin in New Jersey in 1960. Walter’s vision was to take the research of “top apologetics” and make it accessible to lay people as “pop apologetics” (as opposed to “slop apologetics”) so that they would become confident in their faith, discerning of doctrinal error, and able to make a compelling defense of the hope that lies within them to cultists, occultists, atheists, and unbelievers of all kinds. In the late 1980s Walter came to understand that it was time for him to pass the leadership of CRI to the next generation. In late 1988 he announced that, while he would remain the public face of CRI, CRI board member Hank Hanegraaff would take over its day-to-day direction. Just one-half year later, in June 1989, Walter Martin died. In the years that followed Hank did a phenomenal job of moving Walter’s vision toward fulfillment by transforming CRI from a niche ministry mainly reaching the Christian countercult community to a major, high-profile ministry reaching the body of Christ at large. Since 1995 the ministry has had to weather the repeated onslaughts of Alnor and his associates, but it has stayed on course with its original cause concept and continues to bear abundant fruit for the Kingdom of God. 4 Chapter Two: The Fruit of CRI CRI is playing a vital role in bringing apologetics and doctrinal discernment to the masses. For example, Bible Answer Man (BAM) listener Susan Mudd tells us, “I started listening to the Bible Answer Man in 2003 because a co-worker told me about some things she had learned from the program and I…wanted to counter what she was telling me. The total opposite happened.…I have been saved.” Alan Mulkey says that finding BAM was like coming “across a lighthouse in a stormy sea. I finally found someone who not only could explain what was wrong with this Word of Faith Theology, but also had the conviction to stand up and refute error when it is evident.…Your show was a life raft for me.” Pastor Ed Young of Second Baptist Church in Houston speaks for many Christian leaders when he says to Hank, “You have kept the church…straight in orthodoxy, in understanding basic doctrinal truths.…I think you are God’s man for your calling for just such a time as this.” It is this undeniable and critically important equipping work of God’s people in sound theology, apologetics, critical thinking, and interfaith evangelism that Bill Alnor has been assaulting and working overtime to destroy. Chapter Three: Alnor as News Editor As editor-in-chief of the Christian Research Journal I began accepting news stories from Bill Alnor in the Summer 1987 issue and one year later I appointed him to be our news editor. He brought to the task an acute nose for news but it was not long before a pattern of factual inaccuracy and tabloid tactics surfaced in his stories. A disturbing tendency toward crusader journalism, in which he claimed a divine mandate to go after allegedly corrupt Christian leaders, also emerged. Walter Martin expressed his preference that Alnor be fired. Instead, in May 1989 I stipulated to Alnor that if he wished to maintain his position he would need, among other things, to make every effort to interview all parties in a story, avoid hearsay, and steer clear of anonymous sources. Alnor agreed to these terms and also said he would abandon his crusade against a leading Christian apologist. For two years thereafter there were no notable problems with Alnor’s work but then, over the following two years, the same problems resurfaced in five additional articles. One of those problematic articles concerned a controversial Christian group called Set Free Christian Fellowship. The article deeply troubled Hank, who by this time had succeeded Walter, because it made no serious effort to balance serious allegations against Set Free with the other side of the story. 5 Alnor also launched a vigorous crusade against Set Free’s leader Phil Aguilar that was independent of CRI but confused the public as to CRI’s position on the group because of Alnor’s association with the Journal. It was clear that Alnor’s approach to countercult ministry irreconcilably differed from CRI’s and his reckless journalistic practices had returned with a vengeance. In February 1992 my six-member editorial board unanimously advised me it was time to fire Alnor. Alnor found out about this decision before I was able to break it to him, called me about it, and arranged to leave a paper trail to make it appear that he resigned. However, sufficient written documentation and witnesses exist to corroborate that Alnor’s exit from the News Watch department was initiated by CRI and not by Alnor. Chapter Four: Alnor as Director of EMNR Alnor proceeded to revive his old ministry, Eastern Christian Outreach (EChO). In late 1993 the Evangelical Ministries to New Religions (EMNR), on whose board I sat, accepted Alnor’s offer to serve as its executive director, despite my misgivings. EMNR was created to bring unity and cooperation among countercult ministries, but Alnor was driven to take sides in conflicts that erupted in the countercult community. This he did when he expressed to Christianity Today his support of a former EMNR board member’s controversial inclusion of an EMNR member ministry in his book on “Churches That Abuse.” In March of 1994 CRI experienced its own controversy as Brad Sparks, a former CRI employee, sued the ministry for laying him off and included numerous outrageous allegations of illegal activity in his complaint. Sparks organized a group of disgruntled former employees and they broadly disseminated their anti-CRI materials. Once again, Alnor could not refrain from getting involved and sent Hank a February 6, 1995 letter ostensibly to promote “restoration.” Contrary to that purpose, Alnor repeated numerous unproven allegations as if they were facts and blind copied the letter both to Hank’s fiercest adversaries and to the press, who all received the letter well ahead of Hank. He said, “I am on the verge of moving out of neutrality and opposing you….” I found Alnor’s conduct so inappropriate for the director of EMNR that I called an EMNR board meeting to deal with it. I mentioned to the board similar problems that Alnor created for CRI that led to his being fired. Alnor replied that I was lying and claimed that he resigned. The EMNR board told Alnor that he could continue as director only if he backed off from CRI. Despite Alnor’s 6 apparently strong desire to retain his position, he proceeded to disseminate demonstrably false and injurious information about CRI in his newsletter and clearly had some level of involvement with a rumor that Hank had taken a bribe from Phil Aguilar. In fact, this demonstrably slanderous story provides an excellent example of how anti-CRI rumors are conceived, take on a life of their own, and refuse to die. Chapter Five: Alnor as Relentless Opponent of CRI By early 1996 Alnor’s continued inability to refrain from divisive activity and his abuse of EMNR funds cost him the executive director position. No longer constrained by the EMNR board, he was free to join forces fully with those who were opposing CRI, and he quickly moved to the forefront of such activity. He and his associates would obtain Hank’s speaking itinerary and send defamatory materials to the churches and other venues to which Hank would be arriving. He worked to develop “moles” within CRI who would keep him aware of CRI’s activities.
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