“because it is written, ‘YOU SHALL BE HOLY, FOR I AM HOLY.‘” 1 Peter 1:16
In the wake of its wicked defense of the cult of Freemasonry, Rowland Springs Baptist Church has been receiving withering Google reviews from across the web. Church management has apparently been attempting to manage this onslaught of well-deserved criticism by challenging the reviews. Numerous one-star reviews have disappeared from Google. Conversely, long-time church members who for years did not see fit to plug their church are submitting five-star reviews. Still, Rowland Springs (in the care of its hireling pastor Joe Ringwalt) is struggling to hide from its new, well-earned reputation as a haven for Freemasons. Today, Music Minister Gary Lovingood got into the act.
A questioner named Darin on the church’s Google review section submitted the following query:
Lovingood responded with a deflection that not only ignored the question but demonstrated a startling lack of understanding of the nature of the church. Lovingood wrote:
Darin, what person would you not want to attend church? Your question seems to be a leading one. I’m sure you have yet to find a perfect church full of saints and that’s why you ask. Let those without sin cast the first stone.
Lovingood equivocates between someone visiting a church service (a non-member) and someone who is a covenant member of a church body. Gary should understand that “attending” a church service and being a “member” of a church body are different. If Freemasons (or Mormons for that matter) come to a church service and hear God’s word proclaimed, perhaps they will repent and leave the lodge. However, like unrepentant adulterers or active homosexuals, cult members cannot biblically be allowed to be church members. Lovingood, unbiblically, promotes his church as an event. According to the Bible, the church is body, a people set apart for the Lord. It is not a place where people “come” but the body is Christ that “is”. Christian Freemasons play the harlot with the lodge, committing spiritual adultery. This adultery is committed, unrepentantaly, within the body of Rowland Springs Baptist Church.
Lovingood makes a lucrative income-tax-exempt salary (in the form of a housing allowance) performing music for Rowland Springs and its Masonic members. He’s quite good at it. However, if church is not a body of holy people then Gary is just putting on a show. Given that Lovingood comes from a Pentecostal background, his dedication to Baptist doctrine is already in question. Now, Christians should question his very understanding of the nature of church.
Doubling down on his rejection of holiness, Lovingood alludes to John 8:7. This is the famous “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone” statement. Even conservatives biblical scholars doubt that this story is original to John’s gospel. Futhermore, Lovingood’s use of it proves that he is a rank hypocrite. His church excommunicated me this very Sunday for the sin of refusing to abide Freemasonry. As the police escorted me off of the church campus, I certainly felt the stones of Rowland Springs Baptist Church.
I also felt the blackball of the Masons.
No church is perfect, but that doesn’t mean cultist should be tolerated. What kind of standard for church does Lovingood promote here? I ask you, if the church isn’t a holy light to a lost and dying world, who will be?
*Please note that the preceding is my personal opinion. It is not necessarily the opinion of any entity by which I am employed, any church at which I am a member, any church which I attend, or the educational institution at which I am enrolled. Any copyrighted material displayed or referenced is done under the doctrine of fair use.
Seth Dunn 