LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

[I received this in an email today. -ed]

Might be of interest as a follow-up to the Akron Beacon article you posted

Regional Apologetics Ministry Exposing Phil Heimlich

Background and supporting documents:

The Bill Gothard evangelical cult, based in Oak Brook IL, uses the Oklahoma City-based International Association of Character Cities (IACC) as a secular front organization to infilitrate city, county, and state governments. IACC uses Gothard followers who are public officials or political activists to establish "Character Cities" programs around the country. This is done using "under the radar" tactics - other public officials are not informed of the connections to Gothard.

Once established, public employees are then enrolled in "character training" programs and seminars which are allegedly secular, but mirror the Gothard evangelical training seminars. There are now about 170 of these cities: http://www.charactercities.org/aboutus/charactercities/

Arizona state treasurer David Petersen recently admitted receiving $4000 in commissions from the Character Cities organizations to establish their program. (See articles below.)

Midwest Christian Outreach of Wonder Lake IL, has been working for years to expose Gothard and the "Character Cities" program as a Gothard front. Don Veinot, president of Midwest Christian Outreach, sent this August 22, 2006 letter to the director of IACC, asking for full disclosure details of all financial payments made by their organization to public officials: http://www.midwestoutreach.org/letters/Veinot-IACC_8-22-06.pdf

Here are the AZ articles referenced in Don Veinot's letter about the payoff to the state treasurer:
http://arizona.indymedia.org/print.php?id=37891
http://www.azcentral.com/specials/special12/articles/0224treasurer0224.html

A Nashville blogger who recently wrote his own letter to the IACC about Tennessee public officials and commissions: http://tinyurl.co.uk/dujq

1-9-06 In These Times cover story, "The Cult of Character": http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/cult_of_character/
7-14-06 Texas Observer article on TX "Character City" program: http://www.texasobserver.org/article.php?aid=2258
Unrelated anti-cult group's page on Bill Gothard: http://www.rickross.com/groups/gothard.html

[This is a classic example of 'stealth' tactics used by religious extremists to gain entry into government workings. )

ETA: The real deception here is that there is hardcore religion being trojaned into public government and first responders minds as 'character training'. And if you read into these 'character' traits, you will see that they will create a person that is an obedient fanatic. To think for ones self, or to disobey is anathema according to these 'character' traits. Real heroes and leaders do think for themselves, and frequently disobey 'authority' in order to get around a problem. I see these character attributes as a softening up for harder authority to come in.