Thanks for the link, it’s clarifying.

Thanks for posting this.

It led me to quite an interesting document at CRA:

http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/E/pub/tg/t4063/t4063-e.html

Slide down to the section entitled, “What are charitable purposes?”

I have trouble believing that the CRA, as a whole, would say that it is necessary for a religious charity to be able to “say that all religions are equal”. That’d kind of toss out…. oh… most of the religious charities in existence in Canada.

Christ’s peace – Richard B.

You said: “Counter-cult ministries are free to operate in Canada, they have to be compliant with tax code regs to have profitable charity status.”

Counter-cult ministries are not free to operate in Canada as a Charity. According to the CRA ruling that we were given by the CRA supervisor here in BC, there is nothing that a counter-cult ministry can do to be compliant with the tax code regulations. You cannot possibly be “counter-cult” and say that all religions are equal. The CRA also will not let you separate your ministry into two divisions to allow the “counter-cult” work to done outside the Charity. Any counter-cult organization now operating in Canada as a Charity is one audit away from being shut down. One can be a private citizen and still speak one’s mind but it results in starting fresh without bringing anything with you from your hard work in the Charity. For people like ourselves who have always worked as volunteers this has been a big blow. It is also a warning to others who have operated what used to be “charitable” work, that what was once considered compassionate work has now been re-defined as evil, unkind work. Tell that to all the precious people who are former Jehovah’s Witnesses who have been helped by our work. Those who are writing us are very surprised and dismayed by the action of the government of Canada.

Thanks for your time.

I appreciated that you took the time to make some corrections.

Regarding compliance with CRA regulations, it is not a matter of change “style” of communication, or the cost of this change, what we were required to do was present Christianity as equal to other religions. i.e. Jesus is like a flavor of ice cream. Some like vanilla (JW religion) which is no different than a difference in taste (Christianity is like chocolate – my personal favorite but nothing at all like the issue of truth and error). We could not comply without violating our Christian faith. As Christians we cannot present other religions as equal to Christianity not can we accept that doctrine presented by these alternate faiths is acceptable in addition to the teachings of Jesus.

While we did everything we could to separate from the Charity the things that CRA saw as a problem, the fact is that they would not be satisfied no matter what we did. Our lawyer said that the auditing supervisor was determined to shut us down no matter what we did to comply. This is prejudice against Christianity.

Regarding the materials that we sell to support the ministry, some are unique to us and others are not. It is our goal to produce quality products that meet a unique need. For example the DVD set “Women in Ministry Silenced or Set Free?” is a unique product in that it presents the complementarian position through audio bytes of key leaders in that movement and compares it to an egalitarian position. The DVDs deal with all of the hard passages of scripture that seem to restrict women and deals with some of the verses that have not been adequately answered on either side. The set has caused many to see a side of the issue that they have never seen before and its value in this debate was worth the two year time period that it took to get this project completed.

Regarding the issue about hate speech, this has been an issue. The comments were made to us by CRA through a phone call. The charge through the phone call resulted in our lawyer advising us that there was no resolution in sight other than to realize that defending the Christian faith against attacks from other religions was considered “uncharitable” and could go further. We thus chose to voluntary revoke under protest.

Since we were personally charge with “hate” by the CRA supervising auditor, I don’t see Mr. Urnah’s article as misrepresenting the attack against our ministry.

The studio was to be built to produce all of our in-house productions so that we would not need to rely on the added expense of outside production costs.

Our purpose is to bring people to faith in Christ, especially those who have long been ignored by the church. How many Christians refuse to share their faith with the Jehovah’s Witnesses who come to their door because they believe that they are unreachable? I have had the privilege of leading a support group for former Jehovah’s Witnesses and as such I have seen them come out of their hurt, pain and hatred that they have for their own organization after they either were kicked out of the faith or left on their own accord after finding out that they had been lied to. Disfellowshipping has destroyed many families and a support group setting that helps people get through these hurts and learn how to forgive is extremely helpful for groups like the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Our hearts are touched with their pain the compassion that we have for groups like the Jehovah’s Witnesses compels us to share the love of Christ with them instead of turning them away at the door. Apologetics is all about loving those who do not know the forgiveness of sins through faith in Jesus Christ. It is about the defense of the Christian faith against all attacks. The error is broken down, the people are not.

Regarding the SDA’s, Lorri has written a DVD documentary called Seventh day Adventism, the Spirit behind the Church. The script was previewed by former Adventists and Lorri has all the documentation. Those who have come to faith in Christ and have left the SDA teaching about things such as Jesus being Michael the Archangel are highlighted in the DVD. It is a loving apologetics of the Christian faith and a strong appeal to truth from those who have been in that camp and have now become believers in the shed blood of Jesus without the works of the SDA faith.

Again, I hope that helps. I appreciate being given the opportunity to speak for the ministry.
Humbly and with respect,
Cheryl

http://adventistsnotcult.blogspot.com/2008/03/does-macgregor-ministries-work-for.html

2) is fixed.
1) and 2) is updated to direct readers to your clarification.
Since a MMOutreach webpage is online as Inc. your explanation is here for readers.
3) I linked Profile Canada, your clarification of volunteer employees is appreciated.

I understand you are saying your counter-cult ministry is not in compliance with CRA regs and I can appreciate it is costly and time consuming to do so.
After 30 years changing a style of communication may not be possible.
Thank you for stating MacGregor Ministries chose revocation with protest.

Water under the bridge, but is not about hate speech law regardless of how persecuted MacGregor Ministries is feeling.

WND’s opinion peice on your ministry is indicitive of dominionist theology directed at US readers regarding Canada.
WND publishes known Canadian fundamentalists actively involved in political lobbying.

As a Canadian evangelical I take exception to the slant, tone and willful misdirection. We won’t see Mr. Urnuh’s article changed.

A question came up about the studio.
What happened to the studio, and what was it to have been used for?

Grog:
I think counter-cult ministry is a more realistic designation, apologetics play a secondary and economic role; as Cheryl stated they are interested in selling conservative evangelical exit teaching for JW’s.

1) and 2) The US outreach is called MM Outreach. The name MM Outreach Inc is the company that we set up in an attempt to comply with the government of Canada’s requirements. They did not want the web site and the magazine to be under the Charity so we created a taxable company to take over everything that the government objected to. The websites are in the Canadian company’s name and right now the US corporation does not have a web site although we are allowing the US company to sell products on the US ordering pages of our Canadian owned web site in order to fund the US ministry. While we did everything we could to comply with the government CRA rep, the only thing that would satisfy her is that we would either compromise our faith or be gone. We sent in our letter of revocation on February 7th, 2008 and are working to go forward without the Charity and without our bank account.

3) You said that Women in Ministry Silenced or Set Free wasn’t done by the MacGregors. It was a MM Outreach (MacGregor Ministry) production until we had to take back the copyright on all of our DVDs also an attempt to comply with the government of Canada’s CRA representative’s demands. This also wasn’t good enough for her and the demands increased. Since we are ministry partners of the MacGregor’s, it is “done” by the MacGregor’s as well because the four of us worked on the production and Lorri also is in the production. I did the research, the writing (Lorri helped edit) and I did the on-screen presence (with Lorri also on-screen for one section). I hope this detail clears up the misconceptions. We are interested in truth and not distortions. I hope you appreciate the clarification.

4) We have no idea why the CRA has not published the revocation yet. It may be that our letter of revocation got into the hands of a sympathetic government employee. We sent the revocation letter under protest and named the CRA employee who was pressuring us to compromise our faith. Perhaps there must be an investigation into any improprieties before they accept the revocation letter. The CRA supervisor was so insistent on getting our revocation letter that back in February we were told through our lawyer that if they didn’t have it within a week, they were initiate the revocation themselves. So there are the facts and the government of Canada is the only ones who know now why they have not finished processing it.

5) The 3 “employees” are all volunteers. I don’t know if they list all volunteers this way, but our public files show we have no paid employees. We would have been very happy to clarify any questions you had.

We also are the only ones in Canada specializing in apologetic teaching through the media (DVD). Lorri’s screen play “The Witness at Your Door” and “The Witness Goes Out” have been used by countless individuals, groups and churches to teach Christians how to witness to the Jehovah’s Witnesses and “Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Real Jesus” has brought many to faith in Christ even one long-term Jehovah’s Witness who was an elder. The work that Lorri started with MacGregor Ministries and which is still being carried on through MM Outreach has helped bring many hurting Jehovah’s Witnesses out of bondage.

I hope this helps!
Respectfully,
Cheryl

A group running some kind of christian apologetics organization has a hissy fit over Canada’s hate crimes statutes and closes up shop here, and then reopens shop by registering the organization south of the 49th.

They then start running about squawking about how awful Canada’s hate crimes laws are, and WND picks up the story and distorts it even further.

Do these people actually read the statutes they are whining about? (Not to mention realize the fact that if they are living in Canada, they are still subject to Canadian law for their actions – even if they try to cloak it with a foreign-registered company)