My name is Chuck Wright and I was there at the very first service of McLean Bible Church held on Easter Sunday of 1961. The church was founded by five families, including my parents. At the time, I was a junior at McLean High School, and John F. Kennedy was President. Little did any of us know back then that this tiny fellowship of Christians would grow exponentially over the years to become a mega-church by the early 21st century. That first Church service only had about 25 people in attendance and met in a local elementary school cafeteria.

The 1961 founding of McLean Bible Church occurred during an exciting but turbulent time in the history of our country. JFK had just become president and had launched the Peace Corps. It was the year our country had sent the first human being into space, but it was also the year the Soviet Union detonated a 58-megaton hydrogen bomb, which was and remains today the largest single man-made explosion in the history of earth. So while we were excited about our country’s future, we were all also living under the terrifying specter of nuclear war.

The lead founding member was an orthodontist, Dr. Ted Dikeman, without whose vision and resources McLean Bible Church would never have been started. Dr. Dikeman made the whole thing financially possible. In the beginning, he purchased a parsonage so that McLean’s first pastor, J. Albert Ford, would have a home for his family to live in. And for the first few months of the Church’s existence, Ted single-handedly covered Pastor Ford’s salary out of his own pocket. Not enough has ever been said about his extraordinary contribution to the founding of the Church.

Well, life was simple back then. There were only four channels of television to choose from, and the stations all went off the air at midnight after playing the Star Spangled Banner. Gas was 28 cents a gallon and you could fill your tank for 3 or 4 bucks. Redskins tickets were five dollars, and you could eat at McDonald’s for less than 50 cents. Your only choice on the menu was between a hamburger or cheeseburger -- and they only came one way – with mustard, catchup, pickle and onion. If you didn’t like the onions you just scraped them off. There were no multiplex theatres, no video games, no cell phones, no personal computers, no internet, and no high-def TV. Most of the places we went were not air-conditioned. Yet most of us who grew up in that era look back on those days as some of the best days of our lives. They were days that shaped our character and days that molded our outlook on the world.

First and foremost, the founders wanted McLean Bible to be an evangelistic outreach for Christ in the DC area. They strongly felt the church would have a more credible impact if it was not affiliated with any one denomination. Their core belief, that the Bible is the infallible inspired Word of God, was the church’s primary doctrine and would serve as the ultimate guidebook for church governance As a result MBC was organized as a traditional evangelical Christian church, governed by elders who were elected by the congregation. The founders believed it was crucial to preserve congregational control over elder leadership, as a safeguard to protect the church from financial corruption, scandal, unbiblical teaching, or cult-style leadership. During the 1960’s there had been an alarming trend within mainstream Protestant denominations to break with the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy, and the founders wanted the church to disassociate itself from this denominational heresy.

In 1961, a controversy had erupted in the Southern Baptist denomination when Ralph Elliott, the chair of the Old Testament department at Midwestern Baptist Seminary, authored a book published by Broadman Press entitled “The Message of Genesis.” Elliott used an historical-critical method of interpretation to examine the first book of the Bible, arguing that it was not literal history, but that it could be religious truth nonetheless. Elliott assumed multiple authors for Genesis and concluded it was full of “symbolic stories” not to be taken as “literally true,” such as: Adam and Eve were not actual historical figures, the flood was local, and Abraham did not actually hear the voice of God commanding him to sacrifice Isaac.

Our new church needed to become a legal entity in order to own property, open a bank account, enter into contracts, and conduct lawful business. Under Virginia law at the time, churches were required to organize as a membership association in order to become a legal entity. They were further required by law to provide a written constitution to the state, setting forth their terms of governance. As a result, the MBC elders drafted a constitution that was ratified by the membership and registered with the Commonwealth of Virginia as the church’s governing document. Virginia courts have since held that a church’s constitution is an actual binding contract with its members. So it should be of no surprise that Article 2 of MBC’s constitution clearly stated, “This church shall not, and cannot, be affiliated with any denomination, but shall remain independent for the promotion of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

The church’s mission was not to solicit new members, generate baptisms, or establish new churches, but rather to reach the lost for Christ and provide a place for believers to worship and fellowship together as Christians. The simplicity of this founding formula brought about incredible growth over the decades under the ministries of five lead pastors, with attendance peaking in 2017 at over 13,000 per week under pastor Lon Solomon.

But then something happened that changed all of this. In 2017, seemingly out of nowhere, we received an email from the chairman of the elder board that Pastor Solomon was retiring and they would be nominating David Platt, of the Southern Baptist Convention, to become the next pastor of McLean Bible Church. The email invited us to attend a congregational meeting where we could participate in a Q & A meeting with the nominee and our elder chairman, Larry Cooper. When we arrived at the church for the meeting, we were greeted by people we had never met before, who informed us that all questions had to be submitted in writing with our names attached. We were provided cards to submit our questions on. I submitted two questions for David Platt: (1) Do you unequivocally believe in the verbal plenary inspiration of all scripture, and (2) what is your position on 5 point Calvinism?

My wife Linda and I had been long term members of McLean. I had been there under the ministries of every pastor, starting with J. Albert Ford in 1961, as well as each of his successors, Wendell Johnston, Darrel Handel, Allen Gardner, and Lon Solomon. While I had much concern over the church’s potential unconstitutional alignment with the Southern Baptist Convention (notwithstanding our elder chairman’s disingenuous denial of this fact), my primary concern was whether David Platt held true to the doctrine of Biblical infallibility, and whether or not he was a 5 point Calvinist. Both of these doctrinal issues were of paramount importance to me. I was particularly interested in hearing about Platt’s stand on verbal plenary inspiration, because of the past controversies within the Southern Baptist Convention over this doctrine. I also submitted a question requesting his position on Calvinism, because it appeared to me from his writings that he seemed to hold to an extreme 5 point hyper-Calvinistic theology that would be in direct conflict with the mission of McLean. Doctrinally, McLean Bible Church had been founded on the Biblical precept of John 3:16 that “… God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” It was the express mission of the church to reach all unbelievers with the Gospel of Christ.

Both of these questions were completely ignored by David. He did not address either subject in the meeting. There were no similar questions responded to by him in that meeting, but he was asked why he had made a point of stating he thought it was unbiblical to ask people to invite Jesus to come into their hearts. He gave a convoluted explanation about how today’s Christians have misconstrued what is necessary in the conversion experience. McLean’s moderate theological position on Calvinism had been long standing church doctrine, and was documented in a position paper authored by Elder Jim Battle that had been published on its website in June, 2010. Inexplicably, that webpage disappeared from the website shortly after David came to McLean. All of this has been documented in a blog posted by thewartburgwatch.com on July 23rd, 2018. I believe the church’s shift in theology resulted in a distinct cooling off of McLean’s evangelistic emphasis, and may well be the main cause of its decline in attendance and giving. Problems with the Southern Baptist Convention have been many and well documented. The fact that Larry Cooper and David Platt flat out lied to the congregation, claiming that the church wasn’t affiliating with the SBC, was the most troubling issue of all to me.

Following David Platt’s installation as pastor of McLean Bible Church, attendance and giving began a steady decline, from 13,000 weekly attendees in 2017, to less than 4,000 by 2021. Frankly, it appeared to many long term members that the church had been the victim of a hostile take over by the Southern Baptist Convention. There were many concerns over financial improprieties, indiscriminate excommunications of members, allegations of sexual misconduct and coverups, misappropriation of church funds, and a penchant for espousing “wokeness” ideas. For example, associate pastor Mike Kelsey angrily told the congregation he wanted to see white evangelicals “torched” for their attitude toward African Americans. I’m not making this up, you can see it for yourself on YouTube. With all these concerns, many members attempted to get answers from the elders by emailing them and raising questions at congregational meetings, all to no avail. Emails went unanswered, members who raised questions in congregational meetings were told they were “out of order” and escorted out of the building by police at the request of the pastor. One husband and wife were actually cited for trespassing and prosecuted criminally. The fact is that church elders and trustees are duty bound to follow Virginia law that requires them to adhere to their church’s constitution. If they don't, the church can be sued in a court of law for breaching its contract with members. So, after many attempts by members to get answers from the elder board regarding these improprieties, two different groups of members filed separate lawsuits in the Fairfax County Circuit Court seeking redress.

Ever since Platt became pastor of McLean, the church elders have failed to conduct required congregational meetings in accordance with MBC's constitution. Instead of holding such meetings as it has for over 60 years, allowing motions to be made, seconded, and voted on, allowing free and open discussion of such motions, keeping minutes of the proceedings, and using a secret ballot to insure voting integrity, the elders have eliminated the in-person congregational meeting altogether.

Instead, they replaced it with what they call an "Online Congregational Meeting". But they provide no actual live participation by members to ask questions, state views, or vote by secret ballot, as as had been done since 1961 in accordance with the constitution. Instead of holding a real congregational meeting online, the church instead streams a prerecorded video presentation from David Platt and the elder board chairman, telling the congregation what they want them to hear, with no provision for live interaction with members in any way. To describe these events as “congregational meetings” is an insult to the intelligence of every church member. Laughably they are now called “family meetings”.

Financial reports presented by the church are vague, imprecise, and virtually meaningless. Instead of allowing live questions and open discussion at these events, the elder board requires that any question must be submitted in writing, well in advance of the meeting. The chaiman chooses which question to read or not read, but never reveals who asked the question. This enables him to ignore difficult questions, cherry-pick easy ones, and read canned questions and answers from the pastor, staff, and elders, none of which relate to actual questions submitted. All this under the guise of conducting a congregational meeting.

Since the arrival of Platt, many MBC church members have emailed the elder board concerning church finances and pastoral misconduct. Instead of receiving a response, they’ve been ignored, lied to, publicly maligned, unlawfully trespassed from the church, and/or arbitrarily removed from membership. As a result, two different groups of members sought redress through the legal system, petitioning the Fairfax County Circuit Court to require answers from the church.

Instead of providing answers, the church chose to demonize these members, claiming they were sinfully violating scripture by suing the church. They falsely claimed the complaints were being made "by a small group of people, most if whom are not members, who are trying to take over the church". In reality, the fact was that the complaints were not coming from a single small group of people, but from multiple groups of members and constituents, whose numbers were far from small. In reality, the people trying to take over the church were David Platt and his handful of illegitimate elders, who unabashedly had their eyes on acquiring the church's $100 million property in Tysons Corner, Virginia.

The church spent over one million dollars with a giant law firm to prevent the court actions from moving forward. Instead of directly responding to the allegations raised by members, their law firm stonewalled the court proceedings by filing multiple and repeated technical pleadings. Using a myriad of arcane legal tactics, such as demurrers, pleas in bar, motions craving oyer, and frivolous motions to dismiss, each accompanied by long convoluted legal memoranda, they prevented document disclosures and the release of financial records. All of this was done to postpone or prevent the sworn depositions of David Platt and his elders from being taken.

What kind of group uses these legal tactics? A church organization like the Boston Archdiocese, for example. MBC used the exact same legal playbook employed by the Catholic church when it was sued for child sex abuse crimes, spending millions to delay the proceedings and bury the plaintiffs with legal expenses instead of addressing the allegations.

The elder board's current chairman, long-time southern baptist Chuck Hollingsworth, recently disingenously told the congregation that one of the suits has been decided in MBC's favor, however the truth was that the facts of the case were not even litigated. A circuit court judge did dismiss the original lawsuit. But his decision was based on their lawyers’ spurious argument that the church had rendered all issues moot by accepting resignations from the three elders that an earlier judge had found guilty of "shenanigans". That dismissal was recently reversed by the Virginia Court of Appeals, and has not been appealed by the church to the Virginia Supreme Court.

After obtaining several incriminating depositions against the church in the other lawsuit, the second group of plaintiffs dropped their case and have decided instead to move forward with exposing SBC’s methodology in taking over McLean Bible Church.

Open Letter to the Attendees, Members, Staff, Pastors, & Elders of Mclean Bible Church

On Wednesday, June 30, 2021 the congregation of MBC rejected the nomination of three elder candidates. This was unprecedented and has never happened in the entire history of Mclean Bible Church. While elder nominees have received practically 100% of the votes in all previous elections for decades, these candidates did not receive the required 75% as defined by the MBC Constitution.

The failure was indicative of a dramatic loss of confidence in the current leadership of Mclean Bible Church by a congregation who have been faithful and integral members of the church for decades. This lack of confidence comes not from a small fraction, but from hundreds of people who have written letters, spoken to staff, and communicated with other members about their questions & concerns.

At the same time the church leaders have mischaracterized their concerns, slandered them, and in some cases made public false statements. The purpose of this letter is to summarize some of the significant factors that led hundreds of members to break decades of history and reject a slate of elders proposed by the current leadership team.

1. Conflicts of Interest-MBC has sent hundreds of thousands of dollars collected from the congregation to David Platt’s personal organization (https://radical.net). Pastor Platt also has a long-term leadership relationship with the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia (SBCV). According to SBCV annual reports MBC has sent a minimum of $100,000 per year to the SBCV over the last three years. Numerous requests for accountability and transparency about these transactions have been met with hostile responses. The Elder Board has failed to address this conflict of interest. “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.” Matthew 6:24.

2. Violations of Church Constitution–The MBC Constitution states clearly that MBC shall be independent and not affiliated with any other organization or denomination. Unfortunately, under Pastor Platt’s leadership MBC has become affiliated with the SBC. Despite recent efforts to remove MBC from the SBC website listings, and false statements from both organizations about MBC affiliation, there is substantial proof that MBC is affiliated with the SBC. This subordinates the sovereignty of our church to another organization and drains MBC of funds. There have also been many other examples of a disregard for the church constitution to achieve outcomes rather than following church protocol.

3. Mismanagement –Under the leadership of David Platt, church attendance has dwindled, ministries have been cut, giving is at a record low, yet salaries for church leadership have increased.

4. Political Division –Contrary to long-standing traditions, some MBC leaders are politically active. Lon used to quote Romans 14:13 as the basis for the church policy that said that MBC leaders did not engage in activity that could cause a “Stumbling Block” for members of our family. There is nothing wrong with being politically active. However, in a community that is so politically divided, any political activity is going to create a stumbling block for some members in our Church family. Some Elders advised against our MBC pastors being politically vocal and their advice was ignored. The church leaders have stoked the flames of political divisiveness in our church family.

5. False & Slanderous Statements –When hundreds of long-serving members voiced these and other concerns, they were met with false and slanderous accusations. They have been called mentally ill, racists, criminals, fringe, and many other names to discredit the legitimate concerns, and avoid dealing with the real issues.

For these and many other reasons hundreds of MBC members voted “no” for an entire slate of leaders to make it crystal clear that the congregation has lost confidence in the current leadership of our church. If the congregation rejects the elders proposed by the elders, the leadership team will need to be reconstituted and the congregation can elect new leaders. That is why so many members voted “no” and what the members hope to achieve.

Sincerely,

Gerard Dache

MBC Church Attendee-Member for 27 Years

Dear David,

I am writing this victim impact statement to you because you are Lead Pastor of McLean Bible Church.

Typically, a victim impact statement allows the person affected by a crime to address the court during the sentencing process. Written from the victim’s point of view, it facilitates their own emotional recovery from the direct trauma suffered by them and/or their loved ones. Although we are not in that sentencing process, I want to be sure you understand the crime of emotional trauma you have committed against me personally through the hijacking of McLean Bible Church. I speak only for myself; not for anyone else associated with the church either in the past or present.

I am not merely a name on the MBC membership rolls. I am more than a unique identifier on one of your open ballots. Even though you may know my name or recognize me by sight, you don’t know me. I am a real, living person. A solid believer who gets righteously angry, who hurts, who cries, and thankfully a person who drops to her knees through it all.

I accepted the Lord at MBC in 1996 and became a member in 1997. My husband became a believer here also. So did my mother. I raised my children at MBC. Everything that has happened at my beloved church home has affected me deeply. Sunday was always my happiest day of the week. I served in more ministries than I can remember. I was on staff twice. I served with joy and with pride of association with such a sound church. No longer. The joy that I felt through MBC has evaporated and been replaced by righteous anger, trepidation, and vast sorrow. This has all been caused by YOU, in addition to the elders. I hold each of you responsible for the mental and emotional trauma from which I must work to recover. However, as Lead Pastor you bear the greatest responsibility.

I was married to an abusive man for almost 14 years. I know what abuse looks like. I know what abuse feels like and sounds like. And I have suffered abuse under your leadership at McLean Bible. Abuse is seemingly endless lies. It is subterfuge. Broken promises. Veiled threats. Bullying. Unfaithfulness. It is being given the hand. It is spin. I can provide examples of all of these but if you’re honest with yourself, you already know them.

The worst of all the abuses is the spark of hope that lights, even if for just a moment; the hope that maybe something just might get better. I felt it in my marriage; and for a long time, I felt it at MBC. It was the feeling that maybe I had misunderstood, maybe things were not completely hopeless. It is the feeling that if I could just do the right thing, say the right thing, ask the appropriate question or write the appropriate letter I could “fix” it. But that tiny spark of hope was a candle that was repeatedly lit and then in turn repeatedly snuffed out. With that, one learns not to trust. Just as I learned not to trust in my marriage. I trust in the Lord, but I do not trust you or your leadership.

After Jesus and my home, MBC is supposed to be my “safe” place. It is no longer. You have stolen that from me through your lies, gaslighting, and subterfuge. And I will not get that safety back through your so-called leadership. Yours is leadership that is selfish, self-serving, and superficial. It is leadership that does not serve God or the flock.

It feels like you came as a thief in the night, bent on destruction. But you have not succeeded. You have been derelict in your duties AND YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF as should the rest of the elders. And you will have to answer for all of this, but not to me. You will all have to answer to the Lord. And for clarity this is not a resignation of my MBC membership. The Lord is holding that candle of hope for me for now.

You are likely surprised –I do not write this in anger. I write in tears for what I have lost. It is a pain that is palpable. I pray daily for all of you – for repentance and restoration to the Lord and the family of God. May He have mercy on you.

Caroline Hiban

25-year McLean Bible Church Member