Church Services

Field Report: Peter Ruckman’s Church

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biblebaptist

Today we have a special field report from an SFL reader who recently visited Bible Baptist Church in Pensacola, FL — famous for being pastored by Peter Ruckman and being the home of Pensacola Baptist Institute. The visit did not disappoint.

My trip to Peter Ruckman’s Church
By Ayyo
Introduction:
I had the chance to visit the church that Peter Ruckman has pastored for decades. Regular readers will understand why I choose to remain anonymous. Opsec is everything, amen?

1. Research.
I realized that I knew next to nothing about Ruckman. Most of what I knew was hearsay and much of it was negative. I decided to learn what I could about him. Like a good college student, I went to Wikipedia. I found that Ruckman is a WWII veteran. My respect for him increased from nothing all the way up to a miniscule but nevertheless measurable amount. Near the end of the article I found that Ruckman believes that African-Americans have lower IQs than Caucasians, there are three types of aliens with different color blood and that the CIA runs a secret underground alien breeding farm. My respect for Ruckman returns to baseline. Ruckman is known for his bad attitude, which he calls Truth With An Attitude. At his bookstore I saw several sermon compilations from the Bad Attitude Baptist Campmeeting. He is best known for his stance on the King James Version.

2. Preparation.
I got out my church clothes and realized that I was going to venture into the very den of KJV worship without a KJV. I decided to go whole-hog and put on jeans, tennis shoes and a T-shirt. I grabbed my ESV and headed for the door.

I get to the church about 25 minutes early. Parking is ample and I find a spot near the door with no problem.

Most of the cars in the parking lot have several magnetic stickers on them. A sample:

“Mohammed is dead. Jesus is alive”.

“The King James Bible is God’s only preserved Word”. Most of the stickers are either of Bible verses or praising the KJB.

bumperstickers

The all caps black on white design seems to have been designed to visually scar near-sighted people at a distance.

3. The Church

I found the most important room in any church located conveniently by the front door. As I entered the bathroom I was struck by the sight of a very large, heavily bearded man standing pantsless in the middle of the floor. He spun to look at me as I came in. After staring at me for several seconds he asked “Can I help you?” I felt like I must have stumbled into a private office. “I want to use the restroom” I stammered. He pointed toward the urinal with a ‘be my guest’ kind of gesture.

I found a seat in the middle near the back. I sit there for twenty minutes and no one greets me or even returns my greetings. In a way, I am glad for the bearded man in the bathroom. If it were not for him I would think I had inadvertently activated my invisibility shield again. I hate it when I do that. From the time I come in the church, the bearded man is the only person who acknowledges my existence. I started trying to make eye contact with people and smile. No one returns my greetings.

I don’t want to give the wrong impression. They certainly seemed to be friendly enough to each other. The lead up to the service was filled with laughter, conversation and frivolity. I guess there must be an application process or secret handshake about which I was not informed. I would estimate that there were about 300+ people there.

auditorium
The church about ten minutes before starting time. (Fifteen minutes before the actual start)

4. The People.

It seemed like a normal enough church except for the big bass drum up by the platform. As you can see the layout is pretty normal for a fundy church in the South.

I was surprised at how many people were young. This must be due to their unaccredited (surprise, surprise!) Bible Institute. I was pleasantly surprised to notice that my dress was not out of place. The men’s dress ran the gamut from jeans to suits. A lot of the men are wearing ties with incomplete sentences such as “In the beginning God created…..” or “In the beginning was the Word….”. I have a novelty tie at home that says “I have a wife and kids in Baltimore Jack”. I guess it would be considered inappropriate. It is hard to find an occasion that calls for Springsteen-themed neckwear.

The women are dressed uniformly conservatively. Some are dressed in traditional Fundy Dowdy costumes-jean jumpers, white tennis shoes and socks.

5.The Service

The service begins with little warning. The song leader begins while there are still some people milling about fellowshipping. They quickly take their seats. There is a brass band, which, combined with the bass drum and cymbals gives every song a slight polka sound.

Song 1: Page 99 Angels We Have Heard on High.
Song 2: Page 103 One Day.

Announcement. Will all the men please turn in their red ties to the church office before next Sunday? (Churches should really explain cryptic announcements like this for the benefit of visitors. Otherwise we sit there and puzzle over it the entire service.)

Announcement: They had some good results the day before at the Christmas parade downtown. Several church members went there to street preach.

Impromptu announcement from someone in a pew: Had one saved at the prison and one at the Subway today.

Offering time: Unlike most churches the communion table is pointed out from the pulpit. From my vantage point in the back when the ushers gather around it they appear to be pallbearers getting ready to transport a coffin.

Two specials by a group of what I presume are Bible College students. There are 18 of them and they appear to be in their early 20s. “I call Him Lord” and “Crown Him Lord of All”.

Song 3: 446 Satisfied.
(Some shouting and waving of songbooks)

Up until now the service had seemed pretty normal to me. I even found myself enjoying the music. Due to the acoustics in the building and the lively audience the congregationals were inspiring.

(Normal got up and quietly exited the building at this point.)

The Man Himself, Peter Ruckman was not preaching. He did get up and describe in detail an eye problem that he has been having. He never gave the name of it but he described it as a black spot that was slowly blocking out his vision.

He described all his attempts to find a cure. He refuses to go to a real doctor but he claims that acupuncture was really helping. He went to a Chinese herbal doctor who really helped him but unfortunately the Doctor left to go to Colorado to try to convince the military to accept alternative medicine and give up prescriptions. (Good luck with that). He is now pursuing a course of treatment that he says takes out his blood, pumps it full of oxygen and then puts the blood back in.

He warned people that he would not be able to preach much longer due to blindness. That is why he is having preacher boys preach on Sunday nights. Getting people ready for when he has to step down. The preacher is described as being one of the best in the church. Nearly as good as Ruckman himself.

6. Sermon by Bro. Wally ?. No last name was given that I heard. Brother Wally is surprisingly sedate and self-deprecating. I was expecting a man who screamed and beat the pulpit. That doesn’t seem to be his style. He barely ever raised his voice above a conversational tone throughout the whole message. He doesn’t let that stop him from dialing the crazy up to 12 though.

(Disclaimer: Persons attempting to find a point in this sermon will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find an outline will be banished; persons attempting to make sense of it will be shot)

Introduction:

He praises Dr. Ruckman for several minutes.
Talks about being raised in the “Southern Baptist Cliché”
Ridicules people who learn Greek. Calls them “Bible correctors”.
Praises God for the King James Bible.
He was pastoring a SBC church in Kentucky before he heard of Dr. Ruckman. He was introduced to Ruckman by a man named Hoot Gibson. (Sometimes stereotypes are true).
He heard Ruckman preach about The Authority of the Authorized Version.

He then bashes John R. Rice and Oliver B. Green as Bible-correctors. “Sure, they were strong KJB men in public but if you read their books you find where they corrected the King James”. (Trivia time: Guess which authors have books in Ruckman’s bookstore?)

Luke 17:11-19
(I would quote the verses here but he is going to preach from the text. Away from it. He will periodically rampage through the Bible tagging verses and then scampering away from them. )

The passage is about the ten lepers.

Title: Where are the Nine?

Joke: (Old, old, old joke. Few people laugh.) “Why didn’t you tell me the dog was a Baptist?”

Prayer: “Thank you Lord for this church, Dr. Ruckman, Bro. Donovan and the KJB. Amen.”

1.The Lord Expects It. (Expects what? I think he means thankfulness. The number one is deceptive. He doesn’t have any more points until he circles back to number one again.)

The preacher starts down a list of things that he doesn’t like:
a. Red lights.
b. Teenagers who text.
c. The mall. He stops here to make fun of a cashier he saw yesterday at the mall. We are told that she had a weave and three inch fingernails. He imitates her manner of speaking. It is obvious that he is trying to imitate a black woman. “Come on now, you know how they talk”.
d. Women who wear a lot of perfume.
e. Facebook.
f. A local road that he names.
g. The interstate.

“Show me a thankful Christian and I will show you a happy person”
“Christians should not always be griping.”
(The cognitive dissonance nearly gives me whiplash.)

“Only one of the lepers was made whole. That means God cured the others but he only removed the marks of leprosy from the one”. (He must have the director’s cut of the KJB)

Acts 27:35
Thankfulness will enrich countenance, encourage contentment and one other thing.

“Don’t hang around people who gripe a lot” (Like yourself?)

“When you are going through hard times and still thank God you are saying ‘God, you know what you are doing and I trust You”
(File this under Blind Squirrel)

“Thankfulness gets your eyes off yourself” (Guess who he talks about for the next few minutes?)

Horror story time!
Boy is cut in half in an ATV accident. The preacher gives graphic descriptions of the injuries. The boy dies while Brother Wally is there. So does the person in the next room. (If I am ever in the hospital I don’t want him coming to see me. He is bad luck.)

“Civil rights and gay rights are the product of self-centeredness and unthankfulness”
“Have you ever dealt with a gay? Or, as we ought to call them, faggots? They are fit for the fire, amen?” Chorus of amens.
“If they would just be thankful they would get out of that wicked sinful lifestyle. They are some of the most ungrateful people you will ever meet.”

“No one is more unthankful than the left wing, politically correct, Democrat sissies”

“We should have an attitude of gratitude. Does that sound gay?” Lots of laughter.

“What Am I Thankful For?”
1. The Bible. (Yes, we are back to number one again. This time there are things that follow it.)
“Thanks to the Bible I have never touched alcohol.”
“The Bible fixes depression”
“My wife” (To be clear, we are still under the heading of Bible. Trust me, it was even more confusing in person)

“I am glad my wife has stuck by me. I know I am in Dr. Ruckman’s church! Do you know how hard it is to find a woman who can stand Dr. Ruckman?” (Surprisingly, this shot at the thrice-married Ruckman elicits howls of laughter from the audience)
“I am thankful for how the Bible teaches me to follow my pastor” (It isn’t clear if he means this or is trying to walk back his joke)
“I am grateful that the Bible teaches me to love my church”

2. Jesus who is my hero.
“Barf Brooks and Winona Jughead are fake heroes. Jesus is real” He spent several minutes at this point making fun of Tammy Faye Bakers hair and looks. The audience found this very funny.
“Jesus is not a creation like the new Bibles claim. Only in the King James is He shown to be God! Only in the King James does it say “manifest in the flesh”. (This is technically true. My ESV says ‘manifested in the flesh’. Which is totally different)

3. Other Bible Believers.
“We aren’t the only ones, amen?”
“There are not a lot of churches in this town but I am glad there are a few!” (Fun fact: I passed seven Baptist churches on my way to theirs. I only drove two miles.)

He starts naming off what he considers to be good churches. Runs out of churches in his area pretty quick and starts ranging pretty far afield. Names some in CA, OK, AZ and IN. He also says that there is a good church in Canada and one in England.

Story time! (Spoiler alert: someone dies)
There is a Bible college graduate who wants a sports car. His pastor father tries to dissuade him but he is adamant. On the day of his graduation his father hands him a box. He opens it excitedly and inside it finds a Bible. He throws it to the ground and storms out, never to speak to his father again. The student moves away and gets a job. Years later, the father dies. The student comes to help with the funeral preparations and finds that box with the Bible. He picks it up and some keys fall out of the Bible. It turns out that they are the keys to the sports car that he always wanted. Which, for reasons that are not clear the father has kept this whole time. The keys say, Paid in Full, because of course they do.

“We here are the Bible Institute are trying to hand you a Bible. If you take it, you will find that it contains the keys to everything you want and they have already been paid for”. (The Belabored Metaphor Society called. Can you be president?)

“In the Bible you can find the key to being a good preacher or having a Christian marriage.”

The End. Yes, it was that abrupt.

Ruckman comes to the pulpit and says that one verse of an invitation hymn is probably about all we need. I agree.

318. I Need Thee Every Hour.

A Brother Lopez is asked to dismiss in prayer. He prays and thanks God for the message, for Ruckman and for the King James Bible. “Not a lot of churches have preaching like this.” (I agree with Mr. Lopez on his last point)

After the message I resolve to ask Ruckman to sign my ESV but he bolts through a side door immediately. I decide to go to the restroom. The bearded man is sitting on the floor. He has his pants folded neatly on the floor beside him. He ignores me.

161 thoughts on “Field Report: Peter Ruckman’s Church”

      1. I read the whole thing, got to the end, saw no posts, and thought, “crap! I could have been first!”

        Oh well… 😳

  3. Thanks for the humor this morning. I think I’ve heard a few variations of that sermon. I’m okay if I don’t hear another.

  8. Starting and ending with pantsless man. This is pure literary art. This was so, so amazing! Thank you!

    1. I actually found that part of the story terrifying.

      In what universe is a man sitting through an entire service with his pants off in the men’s bathroom a safe environment for children. Seriously. That has “molester” written all over it. IMO.

      2. How many little boys are sent to the bathroom alone? This is so scary. The guy is so blatant about it too.

        😯

    2. Seriously, this may be the best report of a sermon/church service that I have ever read.
      And 20 extra points for working in a mention of Opsec.

        1. Can one enjoy reading something and yet not enjoy reading it at the same time?

          How can they think this in any way communicates the message of Christ?

  9. One of the best posts ever. As a resident of Pensacola FL, and having driven by Ruckman’s church approximately 4,382 times, it only saddens me that I did not aspire to take on this mission myself. Bravo!! Great stuff.

  10. Ruckman is the extreme of the Fundies. Even Jack Hyles distanced himself from Ruckman’s craziness.

    What is so odd to me is that these people apparently don’t realize that they are worshipping a man. Every prayer is thanking God for Dr. Ruckman. Having heard him preach several times he is very enamored with himself. Most Fundie “men O’ Gawd” are.

  14. As an aside, Ruckman denies being an independent fundamental baptist, at least his staunchest supporters on twitter claim that he has never called himself that.

  17. Seeing people worship Ruckman helped snap me out of my fundamentalism. I read one of his books, and I sat astonished for what felt like days. It was a painful read. I *think* the book was supposed to be about dispensations, but instead it was a list of people and groups of people whom Ruckman dislikes and why. Plus spelling and grammar errors that made my eyes bleed.

    A lot of people I know now say, “Ruckman has a terrible attitude, but he sure knows his Bible!” I just cannot reconcile that with his hate and racism. It terrifies me to think that people idolize this man.

      1. Wow, how often is that the case! Maybe if they memorized for understanding instead of bragging rights or brownie points. Still, to have that in your head and not make it to your heart, you have to have some serious Spirit-quenching going on. A mark of the Pharisees?

      2. So true. My grandpa paid me to memorize Bible verses starting when I was three. Doesn’t mean I understood them.

      3. Even the Devil can quote scripture, as my grandmother used to say, and she was as Fundy as they come (which is odd for a Presbyterian). 😉

  18. Thank you for the great humour this morning! I would like to know where that “one good church” in Canada is so I can attend…..

  22. This made me laugh, and it also made me sad. But, the saddest part of all, is that there are so many crazy people that (justifiably) bash these crazy fundies, but fail to realize that their beliefs in an imaginary being are just as flawed.

    1. Oh my landsakesogoodness, you have opened my eyes to my insanity and general inability to be as smart and in-the-know as you are! Thank you, good sir, thank you for opening my eyes to The Truth!

      Bless your heart. 😆

      1. I like to tell my Northern friends that “bless your heart” actually means “fuck you and the horse you rode in on” down South. We gotta cuss people out while keeping the reputation of being nice somehow.

    2. Thanks for stopping by, and welcome! May God himself reveal himself through Christ this season!

      Merry Christmas!! 🙂

  23. “Jesus is not a creation like the new Bibles claim. Only in the King James is He shown to be God! Only in the King James does it say “manifest in the flesh”. (This is technically true. My ESV says ‘manifested in the flesh’. Which is totally different)”

    Being this stupid should hurt.

  24. You don’t suppose the Hoot Gibson mentioned above is Bob “Hoot” Gibson, pitcher from the St. Louis Cardinals in the 60s and 70s?

  26. There are so many things to ask questions about here there’s no way I can ask them all. So I’ll start with these:

    1. Rev. Ruckman, based on your description, is clearly insane. How can someone who teaches that the government is breeding aliens with different colored blood get 300 or more people to follow him? How could anyone send their young person (or voluntarily attend) a school run by a man who clearly needs to be medicated?

    2. Chinese medicine? WHAT? That makes no sense at all. The man thinks the government is running an alien farm, that doctors can’t (or won’t) help him, but yet he’ll trust someone to stick needles in his skin and feed him ground up animal parts?!? Wow.

    3. Preachers shouldn’t learn Greek? Granted, that’s not as shocking as the Chinese medicine thing, but still. That’s like saying a pharmacist shouldn’t learn math.

    Can some kind person please ‘splain this to me?

    Peace,

    1. “Can some kind person please ‘splain this to me?”

      Sure……..

      You need to get saved. Fall on your knees at an old-fashioned altar with the King James Bible clutched in your hand and ask for forgiveness for being a bitter sissified liberal blog poster. Do that and it will all make sense. :mrgreen:

    3. I too am baffled by #1 (especially since my husband is a pastor who’s never had a church of 300 people).

      Part of the attraction may be that this type of preaching doesn’t challenge people to change, to die to self and become like Christ, but rather encourages them to stay as they are: belligerent, proud, hot-tempered, prejudiced. They can go to church and feel self-satisfied as the preacher reinforces them in their dislike of malls, teens texting, etc.

      Also, people often like being in a clique, a special club. These people “know” that they’re one of the few truly “Biblical” churches so they can feel smug and self-important (and they can do it without any effort on their part – no years of studying Greek, for example).

        1. That was one of the themes of “That Hideous Strength”, book 3 in C. S. Lewis’s space trilogy.

        2. Everybody is thrilled by having special knowledge. Some prefer knowledge that is testable and true, but not everyone wants it that way.

    4. Dear ITBand:

      How do you explain the incomprehensible to the uncomprehending?

      Christian Socialist

      1. “How do you explain the incomprehensible to the uncomprehending?”

        Perhaps I should have asked you to give me the sound of one hand clapping.

        Peace,

  27. Dear Peter Ruckman:

    That black dot which keeps growing larger is called macular degeneration. I know a guy in Iowa who has been legally blind for 15 years, and he continues preaching. But then, DV [my friend] is much smarter, much better trained and far more gracious than you.

    Acupuncture doesn’t treat macular degeneration. That theory has no more reality than your strange-blooded alien stuff.

    If the ‘sermon’ is reported accurately, I’d have to conclude that this is no Christian church at all. In fact I’d be at a loss to say where anything here connects with God’s revelation in Jesus Christ.

    In fairness, the big guy with a full beard and no pants seemed helpful and clearly knew his way around the bathroom. If the beard was big enough to cover essential subjects, perhaps they should consider making him the pastor.

    Christian Socialist

    1. Peter Ruckman is 92 years old. The fact that he is only now starting to think about possibly retiring someday says a lot about the cult of personality.

      1. Wow. I thought he was in his 70s. 92? To quote a TV show, apparently the Lord isn’t all that interested in the pleasure of Mr Ruckman’s company.

  28. I imagine that a good way to ruin a nice Christmas parade is to have some of these guys standing on the sidewalk street preaching, especially if this ridiculousness is characteristic of what they think preaching is.

    1. The Pensacola Christmas parade was on TV the other night. At the time, the Bible Baptist group was there. They were all wearing Red Ties, holding placard white and black signs) With verses of condemnation on it. It was so Christmas like, it really made me warm and fuzzy all over.

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXMOYUL-_5I

      This may be what the “Red Ties” were about.

      1. Sorry to say, but knowing what they’re like, even the “Merry Christmas” banner was like it was said not to mean have a merry Christmas but “I’m gonna say *Merry Christmas* whether you like it or not”.

  29. I think this church should be listed as a tourist attraction in the state’s brochure. Everyone should visit.

  30. “JESUS IS COMING SOON, AND BOY IS HE MAD!”

    Sounds like they ordered bumper stickers from Westboro.

    1. Some folks’ll be in for quite the surprise when they find out just who he’s mad at, and what exactly he’s so steamed about.

    2. When I first saw this, the original word was not “mad”.
      Personally I like “Jesus is coming. Look busy!” 😛

  31. I want to clear one thing up if I may: the bearded man did attend the service. I saw him in there (with pants!). Sadly, he is not a literary device. I assume he must have left during the invitation. Due to my unreasonable phobia of speaking to bearded, chronically unpantsed strangers while using the toilet I didn’t inquire.

    I know this does not make any more sense than him staying in there during the service.

    1. “Due to my unreasonable phobia of speaking to bearded, chronically unpantsed strangers while using the toilet I didn’t inquire.”

      What an odd thing to be afraid of.

      1. I think sometimes life experiences alert us to things we’re actually afraid of that we may not have realized until that moment.

    2. That’s better than I can do. I have an unreasonable fear of speaking to anyone at all while using the toilet. Just shut up and let me get down to business, please! 😳

      1. Sure.

        It always helps me to get in the mood by sitting in the middle of the floor with my pants off.

        😐

        1. Um, oops, now that I see where my Reply landed in the thread! 😮 My question is to ayyo; was the pantsless bathroom man wearing boxers or briefs? Because boxers might be slightly less skeevy when you’re pantsless in the men’s room..? 🙄

    5. I was really, really hoping that the bearded, pantless guy was just made up.

      That is so utterly strange and pretty scarey.

  32. As I’ve mentioned before, I first heard of Ruckman while in West Germany in the mid-80’s. The American missionary in the town of M had every single published commentary and etc. by Ruckman in his library. More than any other author.

    He warned me about going to the fundy U I went to.

    His email address says it all: ***4kjv1611@gmx.de

    So, German speaking SFL-ers; How do you speak the King’s English in German and still maintain the integrity of the infallible and worshipful KJB?

    B.R.O.

    1. With the aid of the infallible Google translator I’ve conducted an experiment. I translated 1 Peter 5:2-3 from the venerable KJB to German.

      Looks good to me. If it doesn’t translate to German, just use the English!

      1. Petrus 5,2-3 2-Feed die Herde Gottes, die bei euch ist, unter die Aufsicht davon, aus Zwang, sondern freiwillig, nicht für schnöden Mammon, sondern von Herzensgrund; 3 nicht als die Herren über Gottes Erbe, aber da ensamples der Herde.

  33. From all described here, especially the alien stuff, Ruckman sounds like a regular caller on the Coast To Coast program. 🙄

  34. “Director’s cut of the KJB”

    I vote for that as the best line of the whole report. And, with your permission, I’d like to use it sometime.

    Sadly, I also know some fundies who don’t believe in studying the Greek. They reason that God gave us perfection in the King Jimmy, and He intended for us to just read that. You just can’t make this stuff up.

    1. “Director’s cut of the KJB”

      That sounds like the original edition KJV containing 1 and 2 Maccabees, Tobit, Judith, and the Prayer of Manasseh…

  35. Excellently written. Thank you.
    The Bible seems to simply be a prop for so many fundies. It props up their own egos. It props up their prejudices. It props up their politics. It props up their fears.

    When the Bible can be used to prop so much unbiblical things—how does that verse that the truth will set you free actually work? It obviously is not by memorizing the words of one translation of Scripture.

    1. Exactly! A prop for forcing one’s own view, you put it perfectly.

      My favorite part of the article was when the pastor says “the Southern Baptist Cliché”

  36. I have to raise this point: Which has greater potential to cause another to sin: a man without trousers or a woman with?

    1. An excellent point!

      I am going to say the woman. It’s always the woman’s fault. A man would have a perfectly good reason to be without his trousers. In fact, a woman probably took them.

  37. My disgust for all things Ruckman is a very deep and personal thing that actually involves the death of my father. The insanity observed and recorded are only the tip of the iceberg.

    It might be interesting to note that the illustration described about the boy, the car and the Bible came out of a book written by none other than “Chuck Swindoll — Bible Corrector”.

    When I went to a certain other Christian college in the fair city of Pensacola some 25 years ago, I remember watching some maniac from this church preaching in the middle of July in a polyester 3-piece navy suit in the median of a major street. He was screaming and waving his Bible. While waiting for the light to turn, the sprinklers came on and they were using true Florida well water replete with phosphorous, rotten-egg smell. Did the preacher in question move? Why no! He wasn’t going to compromise! He kept on preaching with that nasty water dripping off of him.

    Idiots.

    2. The street preacher probably went back and told of how he was being persecuted because the sprinklers came on while he was “preaching.”

  38. 😯

    This level of insanity must not be true… right? Someone? Please?

    Also, when first introduced to the speaker (certainly not preacher) in the story as “Bro. Wally” did anyone else think of the Disney character Wall-e in a suit and tie???

    Just me?

    OK then… 😳

  41. I really want to know why the guy was just hanging out in the bathroom without any pants on.

    1. I believe, Persnickety Polecat, this question is destined to remain unanswered.

      I fear that this part of the narrative will bear little children of its own! ➡

  42. The more things change, the more they stay the same! Doesn’t sound much different from my earliest church memories. Peter Ruckman was a guest speaker on a regular basis at my church in Ft. Walton Beach, FL. I remember a church member proudly proclaiming Ruckman a genius based only on the thickness of the commentary he (Ruckman) wrote on Revelations. This story may does sound crazy and exaggerated to the uninitiated, but in my experience, it sounds normal.

  43. The poor guy (Ruckman) is losing his vision… but won’t see a Dr. I feel sorry for him. Despite his errors, he should take care of himself in his old age and enjoy the rest of his life.

  44. I guess this would be a good place for the chippendales to go to church, since they only seem to worry about ties…and pants are optional.

  46. I must add that, Ayyo, this was well-written and humorous. I disturbed people in other rooms with my LOLing? LingOL? (phooey – laughing out loud)

  47. Only in the King James does it say “manifest in the flesh”

    They mis-spoke; the normal claim is that only in the King James does it say “God was manifest in the flesh”; the other versions say “He was manifested in the flesh”, or something like that.

      1. I don’t believe that all Greek manuscripts have that; some have “theos” (God). I know that the TR has “God”; the current USB has “he”.

      2. I’m updating my statement – nearly every Greek manuscript has “theos” — the reading of “os” (“hos”) has almost no support. The NA/USB rendering of “os” cites five unicals: Aleph, A, C, F, and G. However, A, C, F, and G actually read “theos”, not “os”. Aleph originally had “os” and it was corrected to read “theos” — Tischendorf stated (without any apparent basis) that the change to “theos” was made in the 12th century, but recent techniques indicate that the change was made shortly after the original writing (that is, that a scribe incorrectly wrote “os” and it was checked, and corrected to “theos”).

        In addition, the rendering of “os” causes a grammatical problem as well, since there is no reference for “who”, whereas “theos” (God) has no such problems.

        3. Ok, that made me suspicious – you see, the TR we had to buy, although hard cover, was really just a photocopy, and had no copyright information, a title page that only said “Textus Receptus” (never mind that there were multiple revisions), and had no publisher. So I hopped on my Logos and started doing some digging. It looks like the Stephens of 1550 has ‘Os, while the Elzevir of 1624 had Theos. I couldn’t find any information on other revisions. I am interested in the text committee’s reasoning for selecting ‘os now, though…

        4. After further research, it looks like Tischendorf is the main source for this reading (Novum Testamentum Graece: Editio Octavo Maior), which seems to be influenced by the Clementine Vulgate, which reads “quod manifestatum est” instead of “deus manifestatum set”.

        5. *ahem!* why are we discussing GREEK, you Bible-correcting scallywags?? Greek has NO PLACE in a Biblical discussion! GREEK manuscripts are so far removed from relevance to God’s Truth (as revealed in the AV1611, Praise Ruckman’s name) that the mere mention of them is an off-topic thread hijack!

  48. I have family members who are sustaining Perry F Rockwood’s ministry (KJV only zealots–not bad people but horribly intolerant of independent thought). I am amazed at how small the corp of followers are that support such ministries. There weren’t many people at Rockwood’s church when he was alive (he didn’t want any pretenders to the throne and his son had already denied the faith). Since Rockwood’s death, the place has survived but is slowly declining as the membership of 30 people or so dies off. I expect the same for Ruckman’s church. These man centered ministires will only survive their founders for a few years.

    1. Perry F. Rockwood was kind of legendary in the Canadian Maritimes and here in Maine. He actually was a well-educated man (Acadia University and McGill University, if I’m not mistaken), but four years after being ordained in the Presbyterian Church in Canada, he was defrocked because of sermons in which he labelled the denomination as apostate. He went out and formed his own church — People’s Church of Truro — in the same town in which he’d been serving in Nova Scotia, but the people there soon found him too difficult to deal with, so he wound up in Halifax and started the little church that he continued to serve for some 60 years thereafter His “People’s Gospel Hour” had an international following through shortwave radio, AM stations like WWVA, and later the Internet. Its support came from like-minded fundies who loved his KJV-only, anti-Billy Graham, anti-ecumenical, anti-everything-else message. Rockwood had his own little ecclesiastical empire, kind of the churchly equivalent of the Duchy of Grand Fenwick — and he had a very loyal following.

      1. I was a big fan of Pastor Perry F. Rockwood. Write today for our booklet..How to be saved, and know it. Box xxx, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Started with some fundy music and and 15 minutes of fundy preaching. I read lots of his pamphlets. Radio station CFAM in altona, MB ran his stuff at 9 or 915 pm…right after Haven ministries. (Almost Canadian) fundy cred..Perry F. Rockwood. He had a big Bible Conference, too. Yuck. Lots of fundies in southern manitoba. The sign admonishing drivers to “Prepare to Meet They God” on highway 30 south of town is just a tad creepy..as if the driver was a second away from an accident. It also looks like it was painted in 1957.

  49. I have family members who are sustaining Perry F Rockwood’s ministry (KJV only zealots–not bad people but horribly intolerant of independent thought). I am amazed at how small the corp of followers are that support such ministries. There weren’t many people at Rockwood’s church when he was alive (he didn’t want any pretenders to the throne and his son had already denied the faith). Since Rockwood’s death, the place has survived but is slowly declining as the membership of 30 people or so dies off. I expect the same for Ruckman’s church. These man centered ministries will only survive their founders for a few years.

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