Talk:International Church of the Foursquare Gospel

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Contents 1 Relation to the brand "Foursquare"? 2 General 3 History of Denomination's Financial Ineptitude 4 Comment on Doctrine

[edit] Relation to the brand "Foursquare"?

Does this church have any relation to the clothing brand "Foursquare"?

Im involved in one of the foursqaure's and know of no link. The web sites don't show any links the closest is the when foursquare.org uses a horizontal version of its logo buit even then the clothing firm doesn't have them in line.

www.foursquare-outerwear.com cf www.foursquare.org Johnmarkh 14:28, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

"Foursquare" was also an architectural style of the 1890s. Also no relation to this church, as far as I know. -Will Beback 02:03, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

From dictionary.com, ""foursquare" as an adjective means "Having four equal sides and four right angles; square" --12.116.162.162 17:16, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] General

" had committed the dreadful sin of racial discrimination, becoming complicit with the nation's historic policy of ignoring if not dehumanizing people of color, it apologetically"

Whilst in no way wishing to detract from the effect of this organisations actions in the past, this line does not seem to be a NPOV. As the same comments are not on the home pages of the other organisations that formed the PFNA, its position here is a possible over emphasis.

Johnmarkh 12:14, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

With regards to the following paragraph:

Her son, Rolf K. McPherson, became president and leader of the church after her death in 1944. Not being able to lead with the same charisma his mother possessed, the denomination became stagnant until a new generation of leaders emerged. Led by people like Chuck Smith, Jack Hayford, Roy Hicks, Jr., and Ralph Moore the Church began to convert the Hippie counterculture movement of the 1960s and '70s to followers of their movement. The drug-drenched, spiritually voracious youth were converted in droves to the new paradigm churches that used guitars instead of organs, with bell-bottomed ministers preaching in a conversational tone of voice, rather than in an elocutionary one. The Jesus movement of the 1970s that gave the world "Jesus Rock" and a hip gospel to preach to the Woodstock generation, was birthed by many of the graduates of the Bible College, by this time a citadel of Pentecostalism.

Now, I am not overly familiar with the Foursquare denomination, but I do know that part of the paragraph above is blatantly wrong, and the rest is misleading as well.

What I mean is that, at the time of the Jesus Movement, Chuck Smith had already left the foursquare church and had founded Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa and had rejected denominational christianity. In other words, he wasn't leading the Foursquare church at all.

The thing is, he was at the epicenter of the early Jesus movement and the conversion of the hippies, however that was under Calvary Chapel. Now when the movement started to get huge, I have no doubt that the Foursquare denomination got involved, but that paragraph also makes it sound like they were starting it, and that is misleading.

As a result, with those two things wrong, I don't know what else is wrong about it (again, I am not too familiar with the Foursquare denomination, particularly). I am once again removing this reference. Why does someone keep adding it? Do they want to try to tie the Foursquare denomination to Chuck Smith, and make it sound like it was started by the Foursquare denomination? If so then please, don't try to claim someone else's works as theirs. I am sure that they had their place, but initiating it, and having CS as a leader, were not theirs.

Do you have the date when Smith left, and a source? Thanks, -Willmcw 00:06, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Chuck Smiths own story / website suggests he started Calvary Chapel during 1965 but I can't finds a more specific date. He also states that despite being discouraged by denominational programmes the Foursquare church he was pastoring showed the greatest growth in his area, attributed to the work of the Holy Spirit rather than the efforts of people. Foursquare own principle of 'interdenominational evangelism' indicates a willingness to work outside denominational barriers.

http://www.calvarychapelcostamesa.org/high/images/historyofcalvary.pdf

Johnmarkh / Johnmarkh 11:33, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] History of Denomination's Financial Ineptitude

The Los Angeles Times did an entire write-up on the Paul Risser scandal a few years back. Can anyone find an archived copy of this article we can reference?Jackryan 20:24, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

The San Francisco Chronicle has one article at

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/06/03/BAGGH6VLFF21.DTL&type=news

The Los Angeles Times makes a charge for archived items so only an very short abstract is avaiable from their website. rgds, ||:) johnmark† 22:43, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I remember hearing about this a while back. It would be interesting to see if there is enough content to create pages on the scam companies and their founders. Since it was so wide spread, I'm not sure how relevant it would be to put on this particular page, but interesting regardless. Tiggerjay 22:50, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

removed the 'Prior to Risser, President John Holland was also removed from office for reasons yet unknown' comment as tthe only reference I can find to this on google is in a blog suggesting he 'dissapeared' from the role. John Holland died last year, all references suggest he resigned and sufferered illness - without supporting this comment is unjustified johnmark† 21:33, 5 February 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Johnmarkh (talk • contribs)

[edit] Comment on Doctrine

Does anyone have a reference for the doctrine section? It doesn't seem controvertial, but would be better if a ref to official Foursquare policy/doctrine material was available. Otherwise, it seems a surprizingly balanced description (I'm not a believer that every scandal of every leader needs to be documented in the article). --Rocksanddirt 16:20, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

ref to the doctrine page of the foursquare web site has been added by Tigerjay rgds, ||:) johnmark† 22:31, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

• Oops, I forgot to mention that here after I made the update. Thank you Rocksanddirt, as you were the cause for my edit.Tiggerjay 22:51, 9 July 2007 (UTC)