Preachers

Monuments to Men: leerobersonmemorial.com

168 Comments

You could purchase a brick paver at the cost of ($75-4”x8” brick or $100-8”x8” brick) that will be installed at and around the base of the memorial. Will you help us with this project? If you are a Pastor, would you be willing to take up a one time special offering for this project? Several churches are contributing $1,000.00 and others are contributing less, but whatever your gift it would be greatly appreciated. May I encourage each of you to personally give to this project. Maybe you could have a special day to honor the great men of the past. Any gift would be appreciated, whether given by an individual, a local church ministry or by a Christian business.

If you believe that constructing a costly monument to a departed man is a better use of your funds than caring for those still living, you might be a fundamentalist.

168 thoughts on “Monuments to Men: leerobersonmemorial.com”

  1. For some reason the words to “Ozymandias” kept running through my head as I looked at this website.

    2. Very apt. Best reference.
      “Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
        Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
        The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

  3. Regarding the hover text…it’s like Lee is coming out of the grave saying “One more point and I’m done”.

    1. Is the giant half-figure of Lee going to be part of the memorial, or is that artistic license?

        1. Yes, but Lenin fits better as Hles. Actually, Hitler fits better as Hyles. Mistress and everything.

  4. My daughter’s first grade class (Lutheran school) does more in a school year to feed and care for the less fortunate than our former fundy church did in the decade we were there. Bricks, we don’t need no stinkin bricks. 😕

    1. Yes, why IS it that those denominations the fundies dismiss as liberal are the ones caring for the poor? Daggone, give me Mother Theresa over that ape Jack Hyles ANY DAY!

      P.S. being dismissed by fundies=Good Thing To Happen

      1. Wait, Mother Theresa? Didn’t Dr. Bob Jones III say that she had received her reward in HELL?????

        2. I believe that salvation is by grace and not of works. But that said, I think all of us will be surprised by who is in Heaven.

        3. Not joking. Heard it. It kind of struck me as arrogant how he decided the condition of peoples’ souls, without his actually being God.

        4. I also remember hearing that Mother Theresa would not be in heaven. (for some reason, maybe because she was Catholic) Always thought that was so sad.

        5. Imagine the hubris of deciding who has trusted Jesus and who has not. So typical to damn someone whose life makes you look like the arrogant turd you are.

        6. Yes, sadly, it’s true. I just wonder how many people actually study what the Roman Catholic Church teaches about itself. I’m not talking about what Fundamentalists SAY the RCC teaches, but we might be really surprised to actually take classes from those who know the doctrine. BJIII is not an academic scholar by any stretch of the definition. He’s just plain ignorant, and every day it just becomes painfully more obvious. It’s ironic that I am actually taking these classes in the shadow of this man’s school! The astounding ignorance from this supposed academic institution is what is propelling me to actually find out for myself.

      2. Because helping the poor is the “social gospel”. Now true fundy preaching is railing against pants on women, long hair, homosexuals, and Democrats.

    1. This monument is sickening! Any they actually try to guilt the reader in the article to “honor great men of the past”. (Where’s the vomit smiley when you need it?)

      These people are so twisted they’re making a profit off of a dead man using the usual IFB guilt tactic. 👿

  6. The economy is in a shambles and there are people going to bed hungry at night. People are losing their jobs and homes. There are elderly people who can’t afford both food and their medications. But it’s more important to give your money to this monument to a dead man. I wonder what those statues of Jack Hyles and his wife cost the people of first Baptist church?

    Didn’t Jesus say something about true religion being to take care of the widows and orphans? And in other places it says to take care of the poor, feed the hungry etc? Where does it say ONE WORD about building expensive monuments to dead men? 👿

    1. Not only that, but when the OT does refer to building a monument, many times it was to be made of undressed stones, simply stacked, not even a tool to be used! Notable exception, the Temple. Which was not a monument.

  8. If you look at the picture gallery, they are taking down 3 simple wooden crosses to put up a huge monument to a man. It just seems kind of ironic.

  9. I don’t have a problem with the general idea of building a monument to a person that’s had great impact. It’s good for us to remember our history and those who’ve gone before us.

    That said, the worshipful tone combined with the disdainful attitude most fundies hold towards Roberson’s school’s attempts at legitimacy and his former church’s attempts to move forward tell you there’s a lot going on behind the scenes here. “He preached here 30 times! Let’s build a tabernacle to him!” A little much for me.

    1. “I don’t have a problem with the general idea of building a monument to a person that’s had great impact. It’s good for us to remember our history and those who’ve gone before us.”

      That’s what Catholics do and the fundies accuse them of idol worship. The hypocrisy of the fundy irony knows no bounds.

      Just to clarify, I’m not picking on you Red, just commenting on your comment.

      1. My thoughts exactlly. when I read the OP (or poo if you prefer) i though, “These are the same people that would say statues are wrong.”

        GOT DOUBLE STANDARD?

        2. @ Robin: I find it odd that some of the same people who call TV an idol when others watch have no problem watching “American Idol.” I know many Fundies condemn this show for its music, but most of them seem to make exceptions to the rules for the shows they like.

  10. “If you believe that constructing a costly monument to a departed man is a better use of your funds than caring for those still living, you might be a fundamentalist.”

    Spot on! How about helping children being abused in institutional IFB, as well as secular settings?

    United With One Voice!

    http://sia-now.org/news.php 💡

  11. After reading the Pastor’s letter and his article in Church Bus News it is clear that the Catlicks don’t hold a candle (pun intended) to this guys veneration of the dead. Also, in the Church Bus News he references “The Whippoorwill Song” as one of his highlights from attending his first SOTL conference. Really? “The Whippoorwill Song”? Just the mention of the title makes my ears bleed.

  12. Exodus 20:3-4 (From the KJV just to be safe)

    Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

    Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

  13. Double D, maybe you could skim some of the millions you are raking in with the Donate-A-Buck button. Take some of those donations and buy a “SFL” brick

    1. It only cost $75 for the smallest brick, $100 for the next biggest. I would throw in a couple of bucks for a SFL message engraved on a brick. I’m sure at some point it would get rejected or changed unless DD got real creative in the message.

  14. A bit of cursory googling reveals that bricks cost in the region of 5-10 USD per square metre. And they need thousands of dollars to build this thing?

    1. the bricks are ‘pave stones’ that will be used around the monument (picture a paved walk way). the monnument itself isn’t going to be built of bricks. probably granite or something.

      If it was just bricks you’d be spot on though

  15. So, what happens if, by the stated deadline, they do not have enough bricks? Do they extend the deadline? I am fairly sure no one will get their mony back….

  16. I vote for them building a statue of his upper torso in preaching mode as seen in the pic instead of the monument. 🙂

    2. That would be a beaut!
      It would be completely judgemental looking, as it appears he is ready to rub our noses in our imperfections.

  17. In the artist’s rendering, the base of the monument has the sentence “EVERYTHING RISES OR FALLS ON LEADERSHIP” (in all caps, natch) inscribed on it.

    This is a popular idolatry with many church members. Christians, on the other hand, believe the works of the Holy Spirit depend on the power of the Lord and the faith of the people (in the Lord, not in human leaders). Not that leaders don’t have their place, but leaders are servants, not little gods in themselves.

    3. The other day we had “Lying: A Cooperative Act” Maybe this should have been titled, “Idolatry: A Participatory Sport.”

    4. I’ve noticed that its usually the self-proclaimed “leaders” of Christianity that proclaim the (over) importance of the church leaders. Real God-appointed leadership are those who are more concerned with serving others than singing their own praises or the praises of those like them.

      “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.” (Proverbs 16:18)

    5. Spot on, Big Gary!
      That is his most famous saying, and it reveals a terrible error in his theology.

  18. Am I the only one who immediately thought of the “Rise from your graaaaave” part of Altered Beast when they saw this pic? lol

    1. LOL, no you’re not! I was going to post something about that, but you beat me to it. If you played the Sega Genesis version, it was more like “Wise fwom your gwave!”.

  19. This is such a sad waste of funds. I am wondering how many young, spiritually abused and abandoned wives with children could use a helping hand from the church. I have become particularly burdened for this dynamic as it has touched my own family. There is no help from the church since they can just pretend that the wife didn’t submit enough so it was all her fault. But abusiveness is the ugly underbelly of teaching that demeans and marginalizes women. I am so sad for my family member and wish that there could be substantial help from the church. But they are just too busy wasting money like this.

    1. I was the widow of a minister, left with small children. On two occasions, in seventeen years the church helped me out. I got no child support, alimony, etc., and a preacher’s social security stipend does not go far. The Lord took excellent care of us, but not through the local church. BTW, the church my husband had pastored? Nada.

      On the brighter side, my now adult children have a burden for the widowed/divorced family, and act upon that.

      Send money for a monument? Not on your Nellie.

      1. I’m so sorry SeenEnough. That’s also the type of situations I am concerned about. But your situation should have been very easy for the churchy members at large to have figured out. Praise the Lord for his care. I can’t wait until we come out on the other end and can tell you how God provided. For now, there are huge needs and I am afraid I am watching a colossal train wreck. And this is all happening in the shadow and context of BJU fundamentalism. :*(

  20. Exodus 20:25-26 If you make an altar of stones for me, do not build it with dressed stones, for you will defile it if you use a tool on it. And do not go up to my altar on steps, or your private parts may be exposed.

    Exodus 32:4-5 And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf (or a Brick monument). And they said, “These are your gods, O Israel (of the IFB), who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” When Aaron saw this, he built an (old Fashioned) altar before it. And Aaron made proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the LORD.” (dinner on the grounds)

      1. I agree. I think a lot of the reason for the insistence on the KJV is that if we were to read a modern version (ESV) we might understand what it means! 😯

  21. When I saw this photo, I heard the music and saw the thrusting grasping hand from the end of the movie “Carrie”! 👿

  22. He visited less than 5 times a year for 7 years. What did he tell these people to make them worship him so?

    1. I wonder about that, too.
      He wasn’t even their pastor.

      What kind of hold did he have on them?

    2. He told them that if they didn’t build a shrine to him, he would come back as a zombie and eat their brains. Hence the photo of him coming out of the grave just to make sure they remembered his threat.

    3. Maybe he was the friend grandfather type of cult leader, like Harold Camping or Herbert W. Armstrong.

    1. You are a better soul than I. I WAS going to ask for mine to be a big old Hershey Kiss, with the inscription, “These got her though on dark days.” 😉

  24. If this man is one of the giants of the faith, why have I not heard of him? Maybe instead of being a legend in his time, he was a legend in his own mind.

    2. Well, I didn’t know him well, but in general, things like the following are said of him:

      Dr. Roberson was a visionary and a real leader but he had an air of quiet humility and was not a self-promoter. He didn’t like to have things named after him. He was courageous and seemed to fear God more than man.

      I think he was a good man; I’m not sure how he would feel about this monument.

    3. He was a pastor for many years and he preached a few times at my old church in Michigan. I once got my own sermon by him when I had him sign my Bible (which I mentioned on that topic last week). I don’t know much about him other than that but he did seem humble enough that he wouldn’t have wanted a monument built to him. 🙁

    4. I’m not sure why you haven’t heard of him but he most definitely was well known and RESPECTED. He not only was the pastor of the largest church in Tennessee (11,000 on Sunday mornings at the time) but he was the founder of Tennessee Temple University (in his day over 5,000 ON CAMPUS), the founder of Union Gospel Mission (which fed countless homeless everyday) the founder of WDNY a radion station going into several states, the founder of Camp Joy ( a camp that even I went to over 40 years ago), the author of numerous christian books and speaker at churches all over the country. I am not sure WHY YOU haven’t heard of him. But as an AGNOSTIC who doesn’t believe a thing he did, I think you ought to be ashamed to say he was a legend in his own mind. You fundy haters (and I am not a fundy) seem to be JUST as pharisaical as the fundys you constantly attack. He was a GREAT man, a kind man, a man that did MUCH for the god that he AND YOU (I assume) say you believe in. What have YOU done?

  25. As long as there exists one hungry child, or one individual suffering from the cold, appeals of this nature are offensive.

    1. YES! There are probably sheeples giving to this who struggle to buy groceries and rent, but are pressured into paying for this monstrosity because their MOg told them they weren’t right with God if they “didn’t give by faith” for this monument. Disgusting.

      1. Exactly! In some churches they will actually SHAME people into giving. They make out like you’re selfish for having needs, and having the priority of buying food or paying your rent before giving to their project. It really is very sad. 😥

  26. Is…is he flipping us off?

    Oh, that’s it, preacher zombie. I was going to take pity on you and let you shamble around, but now I’m going to get my shotgun…

  27. Was the picture of this man taken while he was dead or alive? Oh wait…on second glance it’s when he was alive-I’m starting recognize that “glow” of love and kindess from his “Fundamentalist face” /end sarcasm

    Now on to my ranting soapbox excerpt….. I’m shocked over and over again at how Fundamentalist completely invert God’s value system. “Let memorialize the dead, but by golly we will let hurting people try to muddle their way through life. Let us watch and critique people as the struggle with finances, death of loved ones, heartache, and so on.”

    (WARNING: These next sentences are a little harsh)

    I would dare say it would be a rare Fundamentalist that would be able to recognize Jesus if they met Him on the street or in heaven for that fact. I can see them running around heaven looking for the angry Jesus and not find Him.

    Also, I’m wondering if this man is sooooo great why is it taking so long to raise “funds” for his “memorial” (I smell some kind of embezzlement)

    1. A curious thing is that the giving thermometer has a “current” figure on it, but no goal amount. We don’t know how much they need to build this idol, er, monument.

      1. LOL!!! That is curious. I’m half tempted to e-mail and ask them. I also like the fact that you can click on the link and see who has given to this worthy cause.

    2. I hear you. And I’m with you.

      Dead people are just so much easier for arrogant fundies to like. They don’t talk. They don’t need anything, and they’ll stand for whatever you want them to. As long as nobody in your congregation checks up on what the dead guy actually did with his life, you’re good.

      2. Dead People can be remade in whatever image is needed at the time for the sermon illustration du jour.
        1. Never let facts get in the way of a good sermon illustration.
        2. When the legend becomes fact, print/preach the legend.

        1. How right you are!

          If Charles Spurgeon, Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, Adoniram Judson, etc. were alive today they would not agree with the doctrinal errors of the IFB fundies – and the fundies would treat them worse than they do Piper and McArthur.

          But since fundies can ignore and white-wash their Calvinism, long hair, and other non-fundy traits, they claim them in their ancestry in an effort to give their movement historic legitimacy.

          But these links are a fraud.

    3. Recognize Jesus? Even if they recognized him, they wouldn’t get near him–he was a rabble-rousing troublemaker who drank,hung out with all the wrong people, and advocated socialism. Not their sort at all.

        1. And he wore sandals, and he wore a tunic, and he practiced PDA, and he feed the hungry, etc.

  28. If they don’t get all the money needed by Feb. 15th what are they going to do…. dig’im back up? “Look on Brother/Dr/Pastor Lee Roberson and tell him why you can’t give to his memorial” Prop his casket up in the pulpit and play one of his recorded sermons so the people will remember his greatness. Maybe dig up Hyles and Roloff and have a good old fashioned Camp Meeting while they are at it.
    In fact I’m pretty sure that Roberson will be one of the two witnesses during the tribulation… it will either be him or Roloff… or maybe Roberson/ Falwell? Hyles/Jones? or maybe Sunday/Ham?

  30. Darrell, for once I agree with you. “If you believe that constructing a costly monument to a departed man is a better use of your funds than caring for those still living…” This quote is so true, just think what we could do with the money the goverment just wasted on the MLK statue.

    2. It’s an apples to oranges comparison unless you’re suggesting that the government and the church are the same thing.

      2. No Darrell, they are not the same thing. In my view, I have no problem with a church building a statue to memorialize someone. If private individuals and groups want to pay for it with their money go ahead. The goverment should not use tax payer’s money to fund monuments of someone that was never a national leader. A memoerial for a President or commerating a military figure, those I can deal with from a goverment involvement, seeing as they were involved with the state. MLK was a private individual, so let the private sector fund it and put it on private land, not the National Mall. Heck, put at that museum of his down in Atlanta.

        1. Well, John, good thing that all the costs for the MLK memorial were raised by a private non-profit foundation, as is required for the monuments and memorials on the National Mall. The only cost to the government is for the Park Rangers who are stationed there. Surely, that small pittance is worth it to honor a man who made us live up to our stated ideals as a nation and did so without violence.

    3. Martin Luther King, Jr. is my personal hero, and one of the great heroes of our nation and the world, in my view. But I have mixed feelings about building memorials to him, and I don’t know if he would approve of them at all.

      1. I would love that memorial, if his arms were not crossed. He looks mean, not visionary. He is one of my heroes also, and I look forward to going there.

    4. yeah, but they went all cheap on MLK and low bidded his monument from some Made in China outfit. Look at it, it even looks more like Chairman Mao than MLK

  31. I don’t condone either cybercrime or grand larceny, but I would love for someone to hack the account these funds are being held in and redistribute that money to UNICEF (or Oxfam, or the Salvation Army, or some other party that actually gets it right)!

    1. Sorry. George doesn’t know his left from his right. He got punched in the head by Phil Kidd and hasn’t been right ever since.

  33. Let’s start a fund to buy some bricks. Anyone got any ideas of some hilarity we could have inscribed onto the brick that would fly under the Fundy radar?

    1. How about Bible verses like the one Don (I think it was Don) posted earlier about building altars and the golden calf… or other pertinent verses. If there is only room for the references, even better. Very few fundies would actually LOOK UP the verse that was referenced.

      1. Good idea, Sims. My thinking is a little more juvenile that. I was thinking “Charles U. Farley. That kind of thing. Eeta Buger. Harry Butts. Micheal Hunt.

        3. The only one I can think of is Jim Socks. (Or Jim Short)

          Oh, I take that back. There is Justin Time, and Harold Pitts. Are these any help at all?

        4. OH! Here is an idea. WHat if the money was sent in the names of people we all know the fundies love to hate. Like Rosie O Donnell and Michael Moore and Joy Behar? They wouldn’t want those names on their idol, would they?

        5. I would chip in for a brick with the name “Richard Dawkins” on it.

          It would offend Dawkins and the Fundies at the same time! Two for the price of one!

        6. Jacques Strappe, Ben Dover, Long Wang, and Chuck Waggen. 😉

          @BG – great idea! I’ll personally throw in some money for the following:
          Stephen Hawking
          His Holiness the Dalai Lama
          Pope Benedict XVI

  34. Don’t you think this monument shows exactly why God hid Moses body? Maybe so people wouldn’t come build an altar to him and worship him, ya think? Its amazing when people don’t recognize their own idolatry.

    I bet if a “missionary” were to call many of these donors churches, they would kindly explain how the economy has stopped them from giving as much to benevolence and world wide missions, but yet they have the cash to throw down towards building a monument. Good grief!

    1. “Don’t you think this monument shows exactly why God hid Moses body? Maybe so people wouldn’t come build an altar to him and worship him, ya think?”

      Interestingly that is why the US buried Bin Laden’s body at sea.

      1. If they want to build a shrine to bin Laden at the bottom of the ocean, I’ll gladly help pay for it! Then all the terrorists can go there to pay homage!

  36. In defense of a fundy, I actually don’t think Lee Roberson would approve of this monument…or at least I like to think he wouldn’t.

  37. The picture is perfect for Halloween. It really IS quite scary…A dead preacher coming back from the dead to yell at you about how miserably you’ve failed in keeping all their “standards”.

  38. This reminds me of an atrocious “Prayer Garden” that is being built by a super fundy church near my grandpa’s house. (They even have KJV only on the church sign…) They have built an awful wreck consisiting of military flags, cheaply made fake ruins (looks like Roman columns, some leaning over, that appear to be spray painted),and bad landscaping, all contained in a chain-link fence. Not only is it ugly and poorly constructed, but to me it seems to be a total waste. The first time I saw it, all I could think was, “Look at that hideous monument they’ve built to themselves!”

  40. Judging from some of the positive comments and the lack of negative ones, I’m gathering that the man himself finished his course without controversy. I’m certainly not advocating a statue, but it does seem that Roberson may have been one of the rare ones–big name, yet good guy. Is that the consensus here?

    1. I doubt there will ever be a consensus here. Even when there are posts about child abusers (which you’d think everyone would agree on), someone will come on to defend them.

      Do you want there to be consensus about him?

      1. Are you fishing for something, Naomi? I’m just making a observation based on the comments and wanting to know if it is accurate.

        And true B.G., I guess just big name in some circles. We basically worshipped him for at least 2 days each semester when I was at HAC, so I am biased towards thinking that “everybody” had heard of Roberson and TN Temple.

        1. His “Everything rises and falls on leadership” belief shows he taught a mannogid centered philosophy. Not only does this detract from God, but this belief leads to abuse (as many of us have seen). What a horrible doctrinal legacy to leave behind.

          Having not had him as a pastor, I can not tell you how abusive he personally was as a pastor – beyond what I outlined in the above paragraph. I do remember him preeeeeching on unbiblical standards. He supported abusive pastors by preaching for them.

          Did he ever warn people about the evil in his “not-a-network?

          Roloff?
          Hyles?

    2. I never heard of him before today. That says nothing about whether or not he was a good guy, but it casts doubt on the “big name” part of your evaluation.

      1. No fundamentalist is a big name, because none of them have any ipact outside of fundamentalism.

  41. Almost $19k? It is disgusting when you think what could be done with this money. Something like $130 can keep an AIDS afflicted person in Africa alive and healthy for a year- meaning that there is one less AIDS orphan raising his/her orphan siblings.

    Less than .50 can give life saving meds to a child who is struck by diaherria that leads to dehydration and death. $10 buys a mosquito net that reduces malaria and death. $10 can buy portable water filters that allows people to drink directly from a natural body of water. $.25 can feed a person for a day through stop Hunger now.

    Closer to home, food pantrys are running low. People are losing their homes, People need help with healthcare/ meds and other essential needs.

     These people have raised nearly $19K for a pile of bricks? It does not even look like they are half-way there! How huch do they need for this idolatry?

    1. Back when large flat screen televisions cost MANY thousands of dollars, my fundy church bought a lot of them. They were hung in the foyers, in some hallways, pastor’s office, etc.

      Then there were the $100,000+ pianos – Bosendorfers, I believe.

      That did not sit well with me. Why does a church need such extravagances? God is not impressed.

      And how many people could have been helped with all that money?

      1. Ya know, normally I don’t get into flame wars and such, but…people ARE being helped at that church. Several friends that are still in college there have told me that over 1,000 first-time visitors came to the Open House Sunday there a couple weeks ago, with somewhere over 100 saved. Now, you may just shoot me down cause I am playing a numbers game, but I know how it works there. They do their best to introduce every person saved to someone of similar age, etc, so that they can be biblically taught in the Christian walk. (Matthew 28:19-20 anyone?) They do the same for first-time visitors. And that doesn’t even get into how they help the widows there (with every deacon assigned a couple widows to help, another Bible thing that most fundy churches don’t do). Also other benevolence things that they do for folks. They ARE helping the single mothers, the widows, and the fatherless. It was at LBC that I really learned these things for the first time.

        Yeah, LBC has some nice stuff. Ya know? I for one rather enjoyed it, as do many of the visitors I’m sure. It’s nice to go to a church that shows some thought and care into the facilities and equipment. I have been to far too many churches that are stuck in the 70’s or earlier as far as equipment, and it just wreaks of LAZINESS. I have never heard anyone around here complain about how modern, expensive, and nice the facilities are at some large non-denom churches.

        1. One Polish Guy,

          Many folks are abused at that church…I mean that shrine to materialism.

          I am thankful for churches who care more about helping their community than buying lots of fancy stuff and redecorating all the time. Having outdated decor is not indicative of laziness, it often reflects correct priorities in ministry. How utterly pragmatic and shallow to believe one must maintain a “top-notch” facility in order to bring people in the doors – Where is God in that belief?

          That church only monetarily helps those who submit to it. Even then there are members who can’t afford the school or to even keep their homes out of foreclosure, yet the church prefers to buy $100k+ pianos to play infront of a bunch of people who wouldn’t know the difference between a Busendorfer and a Yamaha.

          And these same people have to endure the constant beat of the “sacrifice!” drum during their annual building banquet season. I have known folks who took second mortages out on their homes in order to sacrificially give to during these (IMHO) very manipulative banquets.

          You are wrong. Those 100 people will not be taught about the Christian walk. They will be indoctrinated with typical fundy legalism and some (the ones who do stick around) will become enslaved to it.

  42. How do we know if Roberson would even approve of this? These fundy leaders should stipulate in their wills that no one make such monuments when they die.

  43. Lee Roberson was an interesting fellow whom I heard multiple times and met several times. After he retired, he sadly undermined the leadership of the ministry he lead for so many years and was, in many ways, responsible for the beginning of the decline in the church and school that continues to the point of near disappearance to do this day. (There were other mitigating factors, btw. It’s now located in a ghetto that is unsafe by any person’s standards and yes, I’ve seen the current leadership try to reach and help those in the ghetto. There were multiple sexual scandals in Roberson’s day and thereafter. The latest President had to resign in disgrace for plagiarizing.) In his latter years, he aligned himself with people like Clarence Sexton. Sexton exploited the old man to help him build his own ministry and college from the old Roberson fan base and former TTU alumni. Hyles and in particular, Wendell and Marlene Evans and Jim Jorgenson, at Hyles-Anderson absolutely promoted “man worship” of him annually when Roberson would come to the campus for several days. Had he chosen to do so, he could have stopped the ridiculous (actual) parades, being carried in like a sultan (again, actually) and venerated like a god. He did not. Roberson continued to visit Hyles and his empire after the 1980’s scandals nearly brought him down.

    At first, I thought briefly that Roberson would reject a monument like this. After additional thought, I don’t know that he would have in life. He permitted too much adoration toward him to draw that conclusion. I’m confident that NOW he would however.

    All it would take to make me absolutely not participate in any raising of this monument is a look at the uber-fundies, lunatics and ne’r-do-wells that are featured on the “Recommendations” page. Did anyone take a look at those? Russell Anderson? Jeff Owens? Shelton Smith? ewwwwww…….. (It’s interesting that Clarence Sexton is no where to be found on that sight. When Sexton could not gain control of the Sword of the Lord, he went after the remnants of Roberson’s empire and constituency in a very calculating fashion.)

    Just one more sad chapter in the book of extreme fundyism.

  46. The ways this disturbs and horrifies me (not to mention triggers my own grief…see the About on my blog) are too many to mention. 👿

    1. That’s the right idea. Big enough not to miss, durable enough to stand the ages, but not any bigger or flashier than other important men of the time.

    2. In fact, a lot of people at that time who weren’t important but who’s families had enough money for them got tombs similar to that!

  48. The more I see this article, the more I think this memorial would be a good subject for an episode of ‘Life After People’. How long until the earth reclaims the bricks and mortar along with Mr. Roberson’s mortal remains?

      1. IIRC most brick-and-mortar construction didn’t last more than 200 years before plant overgrowth breaks them down; in areas with harsh weather they deteriorate within 50-100 years without maintenance (Detroit is littered with buildings like this). Mr. Roberson himself is likely to outlast his memorial!

        1. Well, his bones. Not all of his mortal body.
          By the same token, bricks last for millennia. But brick structures don’t.

  49. My Grandmother lived next door to the Roberson’s until 2001 when she remarried. Knowing what I do about him and his wife, I would say that he probably would not approve of this memorial. I agree with everyone else who has said that the money could go to SO MANY other things and it reeks of idolatry.

    2. No memorials are not wrong. I’m sure most of the people in that cemetary have small memorials, but what makes him $19K better than them or better than the people that are still alive, poor, and hungry in that neighborhood? The point of Christianity is that God is the only one that is good and everyone else is equally wretched. The Bible forbids idolatry and graven images. He was just a man, a sinner like everyone else, and he deserves no huge monument. That is the very definition of idolatry and that is the problem with every sect of IFB; its always revolving around one man that isn’t Jesus, whether that be Lee Roberson, Clarence Sexton, Jack Hyles, Bob Jones, Arlin Horton, or whoever. The Apostle Paul said, “For when one says, “I am of Paul,” and another, “I am of Apollos,” are you not mere men?” Stop worshipping dead people and worship GOD. Worshipping men is where false doctrine comes into play.

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