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of the Indianapolis Creation Evidence Expo My name is Christopher Johnson (Creation Liberty Evangelism), and this is my testimony about Fred Boyd (Frederick Boyd Jr) of the Creation Evidence Expo in Indianapolis, Indiana. I speak the truth in our Lord Jesus Christ, and in writing this, seek to warn my brethen about this man's deception, so they will not be harmed by his words and actions. In general, I urge Christians to exercise extreme caution in working with this man, and to avoid him if at all possible. He may seem kind and gentle when you first meet him, but do not judge according how he appears, rather, judge righteous judgemnt.
Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment. (Read Why Millions of Believers on Jesus Are Going to Hell here at creationliberty.com for more details.)
Help, LORD; for the godly man ceaseth; for the faithful fail from among the children of men. They speak vanity every one with his neighbour: with flattering lips and with a double heart do they speak.
But he answered and said, Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up. Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.
For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now will I arise, saith the LORD; I will set him in safety from him that puffeth at him. In addition, my wife and I were broke. We spent every last dollar we had to drive an hour each way, each day of the event to help out. It was getting up at 5am, ready by 6am, got there by 7am to help setup, started at 8am. The events would last until the evening. We got done by 9pm, were ready to leave by 10pm, arrived home at 11pm, got to bed by 12pm, and was back up at again 5am, etc. Funny thing about that was that the conference was being held in a hotel, but we didn't have a dime to stay anywhere. All the other speakers were not only paid to come speak (around $1000/speaker) but also had their transportation and flights paid for (even though almost all of them had the money for travel and expenses themselves), and they were put up in the Omni Hotel in Indianapolis, which was a separate hotel from the one we were speaking in. (I know it doesn't make sense, but the Omni is highly prestigious, whereas the hotel we were speaking in was not as fancy, and after I reveal some information about Boyd, that will make more sense later.) However, though I gave more presentations that week than any other speaker, we were not paid anything and we had to commute on our own for the two hour round trip every day. (And it wasn't just us; one of the other speakers, specifically for the children, a school teacher who Lorraine and I befriended, was also unpaid and had a bunch of unjustified responsibility dumped in her lap, and she ended up departing from them the next year due to frustrations.)
And ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place; and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool: Are ye not then partial [biased, inclined favor to one party without reason or justification] in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts? This is only the beginning of the problems; it gets much worse. We met a lovely Christian family, the Sadowskis, who worked with the expo. We are friends with them to this day. In fact, we didn't technically get to know them, but their 9-year old son, Josh, did because the children knew who we were. Their son had been to all the expo events, and was pretty bored because he had heard all the speakers and their presentations before. (i.e. The speakers gave the same exact presentations every year.) However, Josh heard my presentations and was drawn in by them. He loved the dinosaur booklet we offered, so I gave it to him. His parents tried to pay for it (because they are very kind and charitable people at heart, and have set a wonderful example for my wife and I follow), but I rejected their offer because we loved Josh and his enthusiasm. Josh went on to start talking to other churchgoers at the expo about us, which is how we got a little recognition. Due to this, Josh's parents started talking with us, and we became instant friends because we had the same Biblical beliefs (i.e. Boyd seemed to be lacking moral principle, but our new friends seemed to have strong moral principle.) They also found out about our financial situation and traveling arrangements, which were lacking all around. So, day 3 of 5 at the expo, we were informed by Fred Boyd that he had found out about our financial and traveling situation, which we had not told anyone except our new friends (i.e. Boyd did not tell us how he found out, but it was because of our new friends who went to him to complain), and so he said he purchased us a room in the building where all the speaking was going on. We thought, "Praise God for providing for us!" We were also informed by Boyd's wife, that the other speakers had given a portion of their speaking money for us, so we would be provided for, and Lorraine and I were in tears—until we discovered the truth. The Holy Spirit really grieved my heart when we were all out at a lunch the next day, and I don't say that lightly; it was one of those situations in which I physically could not take a bite to eat (even though I hadn't had anything to eat in 24 hours) until I had said my peace about the matter and confessed my gratitude to them, and as I poured my heart out in tears, I noticed something strange: By the looks on the faces of the other speakers, all I saw was confusion from most of them, as if they had no idea what I was talking about, but I didn't pay too much attention to that because I was emotional at the time. What was really strange was that Fred Boyd, after I had just got done giving that announcement and thanking everyone, quickly steered the conversation away from what I just said and started giving self-praise to his expo, which, later after the passion of the moment had passed, I found very odd, and afterwards, I found out why that was so significant. To make a long story short, the next day we found out that Fred Boyd did NOT get us a room. Our new charitable friends, the Sadowskis, paid out of pocket to provide a room for us. When we addressed Fred Boyd about this later, he responded that he had arranged the room for us, which actually means that he went to the front desk and asked if they had a room (I know, I know, for a pastor, that must be a HUGE amount of work)... of which they had MANY because it was a weekday and they were not in short supply of rooms, so he was playing word games so he could take the credit for what our friends did for us. Also, at the end of the expo, Fred Boyd gave us 500 dollars. Our friend Patrick Sadowski asked out of curiousity if we were given one check. I said yes. He looked really confused. He didn't want to say anything, but I urged him to tell me what was wrong. Come to find out, not every one of the speakers gave a portion of their travel payments to help us out. Only about half of them did, and it only totaled to $220 (i.e. each of them chipped in about $40 of their $1000 pay each), and don't misunderstand, that still would have been a tremendous blessing to us (I was not complaining about the amount; I just want everyone reading this to understand that it wasn't a huge sacrifice for them), but here's the deception: The Sadowskis not only put us up in a room, but they also wrote a check for $280 to make it an even $500 (giving us more than all of the speakers combined), yet, when we were given the check during the ceremony, it was all in one lump sum, and Fred Boyd said it was "from the Expo." No, it wasn't; that was only for show to build up his organization. In truth, it was from mostly from our new friends who God specifically put in place to help us (along with a little from the other guest speakers) because the Lord knew Boyd would not lift a finger, but Boyd was happy to lie about it for personal recognition, and I hope the Lord God can lead Boyd to repentance of his sin, or else he will have to answer for all this on the Day of Judgment. To understand the seriousness of this matter, God killed two people who lied about what they gave in the Book of Acts. I just wanted to mention that as food for thought:
Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God. And Ananias hearing these words fell down, and gave up the ghost: and great fear came on all them that heard these things. After I finished speaking at the first church on the schedule, I got a call early in the morning from a desperate-sounding Fred Boyd. He asked if I had received a check from the church we were at the night before. I said yes. He asked who they made it out to. In my mind I thought, "Why is that any of your business?" But, being naive as I was, I said it was made out to me personally. He asked how much it was for. Now red flags are going off in my mind, but again, me being naive and wanting to keep the peace, I said it was for $360. Before I continue, I want to repeat that I was borrowing a family member's car to get back and forth until this point, and the reason I borrowed that car was because it was a natural gas vehicle that I didn't have to pay gas money for, otherwise, I would have never been able to afford the 1.5-2 hour round trips to these church buildings. I was going to use this money to get the car parts I needed to fix my car, update my tags so it was legal to drive, and store the rest for gas costs. (i.e. It would not even be enough to help get Lorraine and I the things we needed as well, and I had a hard time getting work because of the location I lived in addition to my medical problems.) However, Fred Boyd said, "I want you to turn that check over to me." He went on to explain that the church building was supposed to make that money out to the expo, despite the fact that he told me a completely different story beforehand. (After that point, he made arrangements with each church building not to give us anything, and to make checks out to Boyd.) I said, "Okay, I'll give it to you," even though he told us originally (i.e. he gave his word and then lied to us) that we could keep what they donated to us. I was not going to fight anyone over money, but now we had nothing, and he expected the money to flow into his pocket at every speaking session, but was telling the churchgoers in the audience of every place we visited that Boyd's Expo was "taking care of us." But that's not all; the deception gets worse. His wife apparently talked to him about this issue because she started noticing there were financial problems on our end, and they had a meeting where he decided he was going to keep all the donated money from the church buildings, and pay us a small amount for each presentation. I did not feel good about this, as red flags and warning alarms are going off in my mind, but I accepted it because, first of all, I had nothing anyway, secondly, I had no idea what I was doing anyway (I was still new to all this at the time), and thirdly, I was still under the impression that he was a pastor, and despite my feelings, I should just do what the man in authority is directing us to do. Knowing what I know now, if I could go back in time, I would have refused that and spoken at no charge, despite having no money, and let the Lord Jesus Christ provide for us in His own way, but all I can do now is move forward and do what's right with what Christ has taught me through these experiences.
But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. After I caught on to what Boyd was doing, I started making announcements at the end of my presentation that we were two separate ministries working for a common goal, and I edified their ministry and encouraged people to donate to them. What I was naive enough to think was that Fred Boyd would also edify my wife and I in return, since that's what the Bible tells us to do. However, he would not say a word about us because it wasn't profitable for him. It got bad enough that occassionally, Fred Boyd's 80-year-old mother-in-law would stand up, interrupting Fred's closing speech, and start to preach to everyone, edifying Lorraine and I, because he wouldn't do it. (Sadly, she later condemned us as well, and I'll mention that in a bit.) When she would do that, people would sometimes come up and secretly (out of Fred's view) give us a little money to help us out. We kept it quiet. It wasn't much, but I was happy with whatever we got because we needed it. I never told Fred Boyd about it because he would have demanded that we hand that money over to him, and I thought that to be wrong because they didn't give to him; they gave it to us. Well, around March we had a pastor we met who I connected with for lunch and we sat down and ate. I told this pastor we had a home church we attended. After this meeting, I got my first lesson in the little-known existence of the unbiblical pastoral gossip chain. The next thing I know, Fred Boyd is calling me and requesting that I attend a special meeting with his board of directors. He did not tell me what it was for, and he did not tell me what we were going to be discussing. (These are the same deceptive tactics corporations use to gain a mental advantage over their employees for discipline and firings; if you pull it on them suddenly, they become flustered and don't know how to react, which makes them more submissive.) Now, before I continue, I want to make two points: #1. In Matthew 18, Jesus gives us instructions that if you have problems of offense with someone in the Body of Christ, you're supposed to go to them one-on-one. Fred Boyd NEVER did that with me one time, which means he was bypassing what Christ told us to do, and obviously did not care. #2. Alarms and red flags are going off in my mind once again, that something was wrong here. So I fasted (Biblical fast, water only—I mention that because Boyd's church participated in the pagan Catholic "Lent" in which they did unbiblical, lazy so-called "fasting" of TV or chocolate for a week) and prayed from Monday, when I got the call, through Saturday when we had the meeting. The reason I did this was because I wanted to make sure God was humbling me, so I would not be prideful in any way, and do what was right. (Read "The Biblical Understanding of Fasting" here at creationliberty.com for more details.) Come to find out, Fred Boyd HATES home churches. Why? I still can't put my finger on it, but as the years have passed, I've discovered that A LOT of pastors in church buildings hate home churches. (After all, if you meet with other like-minded Christians to study the Word of God together, you're not a church building bring unbiblical tithe money to the pastors who want a bigger paycheck.) But as for this situation, the only thing I could gather was that Fred Boyd thinks he is the leading authority over the Body of Christ, and that if I am unwilling to accept him as the leading authority, therefore I'm not worthy of ministry. Well, since the Bible tells us to be charitable, and I didn't want to start bickering and in-fighting, I decided to appease his childish desires. I told him Lorraine and I would become members of another church about an hour away in Morristown, IN, but keep in mind, I never told him we would ATTEND that church on a regular basis. We had a home church that was less than a block away from where we lived at the time, we were learning a lot about the Word of God in study with other Christians, and we had no plans to leave it. (Read "Tithe is Not a Christian Requirement" here at creationliberty.com for more details.) The Morristown pastor knew we were attending our home church, and he was fine with us only showing up 1-2 times a year just to make sure we were still alive. We had to go through a few things to become members (which was actually a large hassle of red tape that was absurd, but that's a different story for another day), and the process was taking us some time (months, in fact) because we were busy. During this time, we were asked by Fred Boyd to come on a trip to the Domican Republic to give presentations there with a translator. We were very excited. We were also told we needed to procure some things. For instance, $150 for a passport. I spent another $150 for a projector screen we needed. Basically, when everything came out, I spent over $500 of donated money preparing for this trip, which basically cleaned out everything I had in savings. A month later, (which was just a couple weeks before the trip, but right before he bought the tickets) Boyd found out, through the pastoral gossip chain, that we were not yet members of the Morristown church building and attending it every week. He was not happy because he wanted us out of our home church, and into a church building HE personally approved. It should be noted that, not only will you find no chapter/verse that justified Boyd's reaction, but that Boyd never once visited with us in our home church to see what we taught and believed. I ended up asking Fred Boyd to explain where in the Bible that I needed to attend a church building that Fred Boyd approved of on a weekly basis. He said he would email them to me. He sent me back about 15 cherry-picked verses of Scripture that talked about elders being appointed. That did not even begin to answer my question, because our home church had elders. (I have my correspondance with Boyd saved in my archives to prove these things.) So I responded to him for each Scripture, telling him he did not answer my question, and I also told him that his obssession with which church building someone attended was getting in the way of Gospel being preached. (i.e. Fred Boyd doesn't care as much about people the hearing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as much as he cares about how many wallets are sitting in his pews on Sunday morning, and part of the evidence of that could be seen in the fact that, at his annual expo, I was the ONLY speaker who gave the Gospel of Salvation, after which, I had some people thank me for doing.) At that point, for daring to question his self-perceived "holiness," he kicked us out of Creation Evidence Expo (one week before we left for the Domincan), and all the money we spent preparing for the trip was wasted. (i.e. Lorraine and I were broke again, and still struggling.) After that letter, we never heard from him again. At this point, I was asking myself, "Did he not tell all those congregations that God sent me there to work with CEE?" Yes, he did. So, he either lied to thousands of people, or he openly admits that he rejects God's guidance. I didn't tell them God sent me to work with CEE... Fred Boyd said that, and he lied. I tried to email Boyd and his wife and invite them to dinner so we could sit down and resolve the matter, but they would not respond to us. It wasn't until later that I learned in Scripture that we should have never asked to sit down and eat with them.
But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother [i.e. if any man claims to be of Christ] be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner [i.e. one who manipulates others for money or profit]; with such an one no not to eat. [i.e. do not sit down and have a meal with him] For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within? But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.
And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them [i.e. to blame him for wrongdoing and convince him of fault]. For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret. But all things that are reproved are made manifest [made clear and visible to all] by the light: for whatsoever doth make manifest is light. That's what really goes on inside CEE. (There's more I could talk about, but this should be sufficent to get the point across.) Now after he kicked us out, we got a couple of emails from some folks we had met asking us what happened. It turns out that Fred Boyd went on a crusade to call every person we had ever met and tell them that we were rebelling against the church of Christ. Of course, if he had all the popularity and prestige, why do this to a little nobody like me? The reason Boyd did this was because the presentations I gave were so effective, the churchgoers were ALWAYS (in every instance I can recall) disappointed if I had to end early, and they all said they wanted me to come back again (even though almost no one actually invited me back), so to counter this, Fred Boyd had to lie to pastors and churchgoers by attacking my personal character to get people to "side" with him. Boyd lies, and he knows that he does it. UPDATE for July 28, 2014: I received a letter from Boyd's 80-year-old mother-in-law I mentioned earlier. It turns out that, a few years after I wrote this, they finally saw my testimony of them. She presented no counter-evidence that what I said was wrong, but she was obviously upset, she proceeded to insult Lorraine and I, lie about us in the email she sent me, and then at the end, offered flattering words of hypocrisy that it was all "in love." I still have her letters on file as well. UPDATE for May, 2020: Boyd's mother-in-law passed away at age 91. UPDATE for Dec, 2020: Boyd's CEE partner died at age 74. Continuing the story, a couple months later, we actually happened to meet some people who had experienced this same problem with Fred Boyd. They were also kicked out of volunteering for CEE by simply challenging him to provide Scriptural references for some of the things he was saying and doing. In his pride, he refused to provide them anything because the truth is that, according to Fred Boyd, you don't dare question Fred Boyd, or you get blacklisted because Fred Boyd knows most Christians are respecters of persons, and because Fred Boyd is a pastor, his word is law, and no one will question him. Boyd purposefully takes advantage of that, committing sins of lying, contention, strife, railing, greed, respecting of persons, etc, and the worst part is: He KNOWS what he's doing is wrong, but he has put himself into a position where he will never be made to accept rebuke and repent (i.e. have grief and godly sorrow) for all the backbiting and lies; yet, one day, God WILL hold him accountable. (It's not that I want that to happen to him and his family, but it is coming, if it has not already happened to them.)
But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. (Read "Denominations Are Unbiblical" here at creationliberty.com for more details.)
Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that Boyd did all these things to us knowingly, meaning that it was no accident, he has no Biblical justification for any of it, and will condemn anyone who questions his justification. Further still, it seems Boyd is extremely hypocritical even in his doctrine because not only did he kick us out because he didn't like our church (which he had never been to or attended), but at the same time he kicked us out, he kept someone else on his speaking roster by the name of Ray Bohlin, and Ray doesn't even believe in the young earth the Bible teaches! (Ray is an old-earth creationist, meaning that he believes in the tenants of evolutionism!) Boyd only kept Ray Bohlin on there because of the prestige Ray brought to the Expo because he's the head of a large international ministry, but because I didn't have that same prestige, I was tossed aside.
But if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors. Of course, I could take up the matter legally, but the Bible tells us not to do so:
But brother goeth to law with brother, and that before the unbelievers. Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you, because ye go to law one with another. Why do ye not rather take wrong? why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded? Nay, ye do wrong, and defraud, and that your brethren. I did not mention all the deception I saw in Fred Boyd and CEE because it's a very long story that needs a lot of context, but I intended to give a basic overview with this testimony, and any Christian should be able to see that Fred Boyd's actions are not Biblical. On a spiritual level, with all the leaven and corruption involved behind the scenes, I've sanctified myself from anything having to do with him or his church building. Because of Boyd's lack of repentance, I do not believe the man is a Christian in any sense; he's a wolf in disguise, and he has no spiritual authority to be a pastor. Nonetheless, despite the fact that Boyd, his family, and his church building used us and tossed us aside, the Lord God has been very merciful to me, teaching me His wisdom and understanding in His generousity and kindness, and has been so good to Lorraine and I, as He has blessed the work of our hands. I went forward in faithfulness, starting over from scratch, developed teachings one-by-one, day-by-day, and today, I'm thankful for the audience the Lord has given me, and I've now got many articles and books published, as well as around 1,000 hours of free audio downloads at creationliberty.com. I am thankful to the Lord God for these experiences because, through them, His Word has been proven to be true in all matters, and His faithfulness to keep His promises is sure.
And not only so, but we glory in tribulations [distresses of life, affliction, vexation from religious persecution] also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope: And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. -Christopher J.E. Johnson Creation Liberty Evangelism - creationliberty.com |