Over the past few days, I've been writing a lot about the various hijinks of neopente dominionist cult leader Bill Gothard--including GOP Presidential nominee Mike Huckabee's extensive links with the Gothard cult and a new investigation sparked by a former Cincinnati city councilman over the Queen City's place as a "model city" for Gothardisation (the investigation itself sparked over Gothard's horrific history of promotion of "Bible-based" child abuse--abuse that could have led to the mental breakdown of Matthew Murray and the tragic shooting that resulted).
Now, thanks to an anonymous respondent, I have some more info on a subject I touched upon with the Cinci news--namely, that Gothard is attempting infiltration and a whole-scale steeplejacking of our nation's law enforcement. We begin part 1 of a multipart series with an expose' of the main culprit behind this--Ray Nash.
The steeplejacking of law enforcement
One particular factor in Cincinnati's "Gothardisation"--which ultimately proved to be the backdoor used to get the city to agree to Gothard's program--was the initial recruitment of much of the Cincinnati Police Department, and ultimately City Commissioner Phil Heimlich, by Ray Nash and a Gothard frontgroup called Police Dynamics Institute:
Cincinnati businessman Mike Daly was another speaker at your 2005 national conference. In his speech, Mr. Daly explained how he was responsible for introducing your program to Mr. Heimlich:
After that, there was so much enthusiasm in Cincinnati to do something that I called a few friends together--and I made a donation to Phil's campaign--Phil Heimlich, the politician you'll meet tomorrow. First time we met he called me up, and I gave him a domation and we had lunch together. And he said, "Is there anything on your heart that I should do for you?" And he was expecting me to ask for something from the government for business. Instead, I shoved all these materials at Phil and said, "Yeah, get this into our city."
Is that correct, Phil? Is that pretty much a recount of what happened? Phil's back there in the last row. Stand up for a second, Phil, so I can--there's Phil Heimlich, as I told you the influential politician, and Ray, stand up, too. Ray and I--we taught the whole (Cincinnati) police force.
So I'm just trying to show you how one city worked. This is how one city got together.
Digging through some newspaper clippings attached to a resolution in Cinci approving the Gothard programs, on page 18 there is a rather explicit note on Police Dynamics Institute--Nash's group--being a Gothard front. Silja Tavli's Cult of Character also has noted the connection--and its concern that PDI is being used to "Gothardise" police departments nationwide as well as in other countries.
As a result of my article on the Cinci program, an anonymous responder forwarded me some tips--he apparently follows a former member of the very police department Ray Nash used to work for who is now a "Gothard-watcher". (I have since redacted the name upon request.)
And the information I was forwarded (and which I was able to look up in the meantime) was, to put it mildly, very interesting indeed.
"Shepherding" police departments nationwide
The first of the articles forwarded to me was a bit from the Charleston Post & Courier on Nash--as is so often the case in Gothard-watching, much of the publicity on hijinks has been in local papers and not receiving much as far as national coverage.
Anyways, this article gives rather more detail about the meeting promoted in the blurb from page 18 of the resolution from PDI's internal paper:
SUMMERVILLE — When Dorchester County Sheriff Ray Nash taught his character-building program to a group of visiting Romanian police chiefs Thursday, he told them that the course doesn't automatically work.
"Just because you focus on character ... does not mean that you cannot have a character failure," Nash told the group.
The Romanian police chiefs, dressed in civilian clothing, listened while seated at tables in a room at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Summerville. Nash was in front with a laptop projecting diagrams and principles onto a screen. He calls the course "Police Dynamics." He's shown it around the country, as well as in several other countries. The character-training program is mandatory for all of Nash's deputies.
After a bit on Nash's history with the Summerville PD--in which it's noted he accused the former police chief of rather massive embezzlement--the Gothardite links become more clear:
Only a few of the visiting police chiefs speak English, so Cris Ouatu, a Romanian-born engineer who lives near Los Angeles, translated.
Ouatu is affiliated with Bill Gothard's Institute in Basic Life Principles, a Bible-based curriculum he taught in Romania. He said he heard Nash was giving a seminar in Romania and linked up with him because they are philosophically similar. Ouatu said the Gothard Institute paid his expenses for this trip.
And disturbingly, tax dollars paid at least some of the expenses for recruitment of Romanian cops into what amounts to one of the most coercive neopentecostal dominionist groups ever documented:
Nash said no taxpayer money is going into the chiefs' visit, but the jail fund picked up the tab for some of their meals and snacks. The jail fund comes from inmates and includes money from haircuts, medical exams, collect phone calls and a $15 processing fee for arrested suspects that Nash put on hold after County Council questioned whether it was legal.
The Thursday morning session focused on "The Dynamic of Authority." When officers succumb to "an attitude of pride and selfishness" and stray outside delegated authority, they break down relationships all around them, according to the lesson.
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death," Nash said, alluding to one of the proverbs in the Bible.
County Council and Nash have been clashing over an authority issue: who controls his budget. Nash has run over budget every year, saying that council has not provided for enough deputies. He has said the jail fund in question was used for special unbudgeted items, such as picnics for volunteers.
Oh, about that "authority dynamic". The Cincinnati Beacon has excerpts of it--it rather explicitly promotes the highly coercive "discipling and shepherding" model that is a staple of Gothardism in general:
In 2000, and in 2002, the Character Council of Greater Cincinnati brought Sheriff Ray Nash to town to give an extensive "character training" seminar to the police and fire departments. Public records are sparse on this training, but we did acquire a packet entitled "Police Dynamics Institute Conference Workbook." It consists of some original writing, and then reprinted newspaper articles about the Character First! program.
To your right, you can see an image representing one page from the training materials. (We apologize for the low resolution.) The page is labeled "Dynamic of Discretion," and it starts by naming "Five Types of Fools":
1—Believes anything, needs instruction
2—Out for a good time, needs discipline
3—Immoral, impure, needs court supervision/intervention
4—Mocks authority, gets simple fool in trouble, needs public punishment
5—Set on evil, needs prison
As you can see, underneath these definitions is a diagram. It places a stick figure labeled "authority" at the top of a pyramid. Under the figure’s feet the block is labeled, "under authority," and all the steps on which this authority stands have each been labeled "Fool."
I find all of this rather troubling, and strange. First, I don’t like the definition of Fool #3. I don’t like the simple idea that courts are in charge of supervising those who are "immoral" or "impure." These terms cross wires in terms of private religious beliefs and public policy.
. . .
The Character training here for our police and fire was overwhelmingly well received, but there were some noteworthy "minority reports" in some unsigned evaluations of the program. My favorite: "Sometimes I got the feeling I was at a Promise Keepers meeting. Kept waiting to get baptized in the name of Jesus Christ."
Commentary in regards to the audit also indicates that Nash himself may have given rather explicit courses at IBLP itself (the main "Gothard" front).
At the same time--as was initially hinted by Midwest Bible Outreach's original commentary to the Cincinnati city council--it seems that, for all their love of "character" as a codeword for "dominionist-ising" a city, Gothard's leadership is rather less enamoured of actual character. It seems that, again, the Charleston Post & Courier reveals that the end result of the audit shows that Nash himself engaged in more than a bit of nepotism and embezzlement:
ST. GEORGE — Dorchester County Sheriff Ray Nash makes no apologies for giving his administrator's brother-in-law $65,000 over the plast two years to maintain the department's computer system.
He also has no regrets for paying his former campaign manager $1,500 a month as jail chaplain.
A followup article on the audit showed that quite a lot of the money embezzled by Nash ended up going straight to Gothard's coffers:
The following payments were among those noted by a team of forensic specialists in an independent audit ordered by County Council of the sheriff's department records for 2006-2007:
--$65,467.59 to S&R Promotions, owned by administrator Franklin Smith's brother-in law, to perform software and intranet services; the company was contracted by the office to track assets. Auditors noted that "many of the invoices reflect charges for 'Professional Services' with no detail regarding the nature of the service or the amount of time expended."
--$56,600 for chaplain services; those same services are handled by volunteers at Charleston County jails.
--$4,199 to Character First! for subscriptions, calendars, training material and other items. Sheriff Ray Nash has promoted the character training program and used it to found his own Police Dynamics seminar.
$2,241 to Carnival Cruise Lines; a $599.45 cash card withdrawal on Sovereign of the Seas, a Royal Caribbean International cruise ship.
--More than 50 cash card withdrawals from Dorchester County Detention Center accounts for amounts of $500 or more.
Those were among the findings by Rachlin Cohen & Holtz in an audit County Council ordered of the Sheriff's Office in August, saying it wanted to find out why Sheriff Ray Nash has been going over budget. Council expanded the audit in December after auditors discovered tens of thousands of dollars missing from the jail fund and suspected embezzlement.
Disturbingly, commentary by a respondent--quoting from previous Post & Courier articles--indicates that Nash also directly funded Bill Gothard's paramilitary training camp for "Joel's Army":
The Institute in Basic Life Principles -Founder & President and is listed as #4 on Board of Directors and Other advisors..Operates a 2200 acre former University campus near Tyler Texas,used by Gothards ALERT program.Gothard states that "Alert" is an intensive program in which young men(graduates of ATI) ages 16 plus are trained in Biblical principles,Godly Character,and Practical skills......
Randy Scott Questioned Nash's spending of more than $8,200 on flight training.The Checks include payments for Hotel accomadations and a rental car for the ALERT team.Nash Said the team provided flight training to his officers free of charge.Asked about a Check for$2,205.86 made out to ALERT he said he didnt remember the details,but it must have been to cover the teams expenses....7/8/00 by Bobby Young Post and courier....
......The Institute Covered Nash's expenses for aseminar five years ago in Romania,Nash said....4/12/04 by Nita Birmingham & Bo Peterson Post and Courier
Eventually, Nash's little attempts to recruit Romanian policemen into Joel's Army ended up becoming a focus of the audit:
Dorchester County Sheriff Ray Nash makes no apologies for spending jail money on Romanian police chiefs attending one of his character-training sessions last week.
Retired State Law Enforcement Division supervisor L.C. Knight, who is challenging Nash for office, calls the expenditure inappropriate.
"That's not what it's earmarked for," Knight said. "It does not have anything to do with inmates in Dorchester County."
Nash used jail fund money to pay for meals and snacks for the dozen chiefs who visited the Lowcountry last week. Nash met them through a character-training seminar he conducted in Romania.
The jail fund comes from inmates' snacks, haircuts, medical exams and a $15 processing fee that Nash stopped charging after Dorchester County Council questioned its legality. State law says commissary money is supposed to be used "for the welfare of inmates."
"I don't know that it directly benefits the inmates, but it certainly benefits law enforcement," Nash said of the Romanians' visit. "Besides, it was the least we could do to be good hosts."
Tomorrow, we look into PDI itself--including the history of coercive tactics it promotes.
Got any tips? Post 'em in the comments, or send email to dogemperor (dot) dkos (at) gmail (dot) com.