Mark Schlachtenhaufen

EDMOND — An Edmond church Monday responded to a recent report by a local TV station, saying it was particularly offended by an effort to connect it to the fiery 1993 Branch Davidian standoff in Texas.

Oklahoma City’s FOX25 aired a two-part series about the Philadelphia Church of God, located on a 170-acre campus in far south Logan County at 14400 S. Bryant Ave.

The report, aired last week during a ratings period for TV news stations, described PCG’s mission as being to warn people that the world will soon come to a violent end, and that followers believe only the faithful will survive.

In the TV report, Stephen Flurry, vice president of the PCG, son of PCG Pastor General Gerald Flurry, said the church believes the end of the world is near. Reporter Nick Winkler went on to say the campus is a model for how Christians should behave and help Jesus, after he returns, set up his new government in Jerusalem.

In preparation, Winkler said, the PCG is developing the Edmond campus. Winkler described campus facilities that include a new school and a $15 million performing arts center to be finished next year. Winkler reported that the church raised about $15 million last year from members.

In the report, former member Dennis Fisher said Gerald Flurry tried to scare people out of their money. Fisher said Flurry is characterized as a prophet. And unnamed ex-members reportedly said they were asked to tithe multiple times to remain in the church.

During a Monday morning press conference on the Edmond campus, Stephen Flurry responded to what he called an attempt by the station to connect the PCG to the 51-day Waco siege, which ended on April 19, 1993, when dozens of people, including Davidian leader David Koresh, died in a fire.

“The one we took the greatest offense to was the connection that they tried to make between our church and what happened down in Waco, Texas, in 1993,” Stephen Flurry said.

He said in the report, FOX25 cited a letter written by an anonymous ex-member who noticed a change in Gerald Flurry’s thinking that took place in 1993, when he allegedly became more paranoid.

“This just so happened to be the same year that David Koresh had his confrontation with the FBI,” Stephen Flurry said. “To make that sort of dishonest and really illogical connection we feel like was just disgraceful, yellow journalism at its worst.”

He said the PCG felt it had to come out to say this is not the case, and anyone who is fair and objective, anyone who has seen the campus and the PCG’s work, knows the sincerity behind its actions.

Joe Spadea, FOX25 news director, said the station stands by Winkler’s work, which was based on “exhaustive” and objective investigative reporting. Spadea said the station would have been at the press conference if it had been notified in advance, and that it was not “shying away” from the event.

Stephen Flurry said the report, based on innuendo and aired during a ratings period, was geared toward increasing ratings, which would mean increased revenue for the station. The report was aimed at scaring Oklahoma City and Edmond residents about what the church is or is not doing, he said.

“To me, they’re the ones scaring people to get money,” Stephen Flurry said. “We don’t scare people to get money. Our people give voluntarily, and they give because they believe in this work.”

Regarding the financial giving, Stephen Flurry said the PCG has members who obey the “tithe command as we see it.”

Shane Granger, PCG marketing director, said the second tithe does not come to the church, but is saved by members for their own expenses and spiritual enjoyment attending biblical annual festivals.

The third tithe is contributed every third year, Granger said, and goes not into church operations, but for the support of its widows, orphans and poor, taking that burden off public tax rolls.

Granger said the Bible is clear that many people, not just church members, will survive the coming time of trouble. “We have never said otherwise,” he said.

Granger said the church took issue with the statement that police and the FBI investigated the PCG, but prosecutors have not charged the church with a crime.

While The Edmond Sun was not able to get a comment from the Oklahoma City FBI office by press time, Jessica Brown, spokeswoman for the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, said the OSBI has not conducted a past or current investigation into the PCG.

Kevin Woodward, undersheriff with the Logan County Sheriff’s Office, which has legal jurisdiction over that area, said his office has not received any recent complaints about the PCG. But about a year ago, Woodward’s office conducted a “flyover” of the PCG campus, a preventative measure to see if everything was “on the up and up” and to be sure there would be no Waco-like incident here.

Stephen Flurry said the PCG has distributed nearly 50 million pieces of literature during the past two decades, all of it free of charge. And, during the 15-year run of its program “Key of David,” the PCG has never asked viewers for money on the air, he said.

He said the church has brought students from across the world to its liberal arts college, also on the PCG’s world headquarters in Edmond.