CHAPTER (A)

Archer City, Texas—Sunday Morning, Texas State Highway 281 to Highway 25

“Well, that’s ‘bout all I gotta to say, for now.”

Nothing moved.

This Sunday morning, one block from the hollowed-out Royal Theater—made famous by late author, Larry McMurtry’s novel and movie, “The Last Picture Show,” there was no sign of life. Across the street, the 160-year-old Archer County Courthouse sat in the center of town. Windblown tumbleweed rambled down Texas Highway 81, proof that the scene was not a still shot. It was, after all, Sunday Morning—God’s Day in rural, upper north-central Texas—hell, all of Texas, for that matter.

After a Saturday night of serious sinning, many residents either had their bottoms planted in church pews, or were still in bed fighting hangovers while staring up at demons in red sneakers dancing the Cha-cha-cha on their ceilings. Others were likely taking in TV-church services televised from some gilded mega-church in Dallas, Houston, or wherever.

Three blocks beyond the Royal, down North Sycamore Street, the famous Archer County Museum (once a jail) built in 1910 and recently renovated to its original glory, again brought pride to the city and county residents. The late Doris Hohhertz who, along with daughters, Delores and Gina managed the facility years earlier, would be thrilled to see it now. Presently, it was closed until after church benedictions. Meanwhile, five minutes away, a serious conversation was taking place behind closed doors.

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“Now, just hear me out. If you’re waiting for me to apologize for what I’ve been saying, day in and day out, it’ ain’t coming. No sir, it ain’t ever coming. Fact is, I don’t owe anyone a dang apology for speaking truth, right? Hell, that’s what I signed up to do. And I’m gonna’ keep on doing just that as long as I draw breath. And one more thing, I could sure use some help in this… this truth-telling journey I’m on.

“Like a lot of us, who grow fewer and fewer in number, I look around and see some of these bible-toting, prosperity-preaching prevaricators, whoremongers, and moneychangers doing more prospering than perishing. C’mon, I’m not making this up. There are more than a few of them who do serious harm to efforts showing the “way of the cross” to the lost. Let me ask you something. Where were those famous faces from 2016 to after November third 2020, especially on January 6, and during the Covid-19 Pandemic—on things that mattered? Tell me. No, I’ll tell you. They were supporting heresy, blasphemy, swamp creatures, bald-faced liars, and things found nowhere in scripture. Nowhere. That’s where they were, and still are.

“Some of that judgment promised for the hereafter oughta’ be visited upon them in the here and now. There should be a special wing in hell for them. Look, I’m doing all I can to get by. I don’t require very much. But that ’92 pickup I drive does more lying down than picking up. Plus, the mortgage on my little duplex hovel is so far in arrears I can’t even see it with the Hubble Telescope. And I confess there are times when I wonder if I’m the fool, if I’m the sanctimonious idiot, despite believing when the Word tells me to not grow weary in well-doing.

“But I’m gonna keep on trying. I’ll keep on believing in the rightness of the cause and trying to hold on to those few who are still willing to stand with me. There are folks who depend on me for that. But I just need a little help—a little intervention here. Maybe more than a little, to be honest. My purpose is not to be some crusading martyr for martyrdom sake. But I can’t pretend I don’t see what I see. I am who I am. What I know is I cannot stand by, complain and complain, and wait for someone else to speak up. Too much of that is going on all over this country. People are suffering. Injustice is rampant, both in the streets—under the color of law—and in the State Houses. David would need a bigger slingshot and a boulder, not a rock, these days.

“Well, that’s about all I got to say, right now. Sorry for bending your ear like this. You did tell me to come to you when I needed to, and I sure needed to do so. I sure appreciate your listening. Get back to me, as soon as you can. In Jesus’ name I pray and give thanks to Almighty God, Amen.”

—

With that, Pastor Earl B. Freeny, 59—a self-assured, inactive but never ex-Marine—a self-described Robert Duvall type, and hater of all things dishonest, exited the door to his closet-size Pastor’s study. Freeny particularly loved Duvall in the film “Open Range,”  especially the café scene. Earl B. closed the door with a thunk and headed down the hallway to the make-shift Church sanctuary. The few dozen remaining faithful waited for him in the once shuttered bookstore, one of many once owned by McMurtry, rest his generous soul. The few members of Freeny’s once burgeoning congregation now numbered less than the number of stragglers found in most church parking lots hours after benedictions.

Born and raised in Wichita Falls, less than thirty miles away, to parents of very modest means, Pastor Earl B’s route to Archer City was a circuitous one. He seldom talked about his past, except his six years in the Marine Corps, following boot camp days at Parris Island, South Carolina. That was long ago. There were more pressing matters now. Most pressing was his concern for the welfare and safety of the half-dozen young idealistic, gifted, and committed young college kids—firm believers in his closely-held mission. Earl B and his rag-tag group of young believers, were knowingly risking life and limb in their plan to go undercover to expose the truth about two warring, powerful Dallas-based mega-evangelists. Both were on dueling global missions, determined to win souls and secure the other’s total destruction—literally and perhaps physically.

Pastor Earl B. Freeny had no agenda, except truth. The affable, rural Texas preacher was unwilling to ignore what he passionately believed to be the triumph of “false biblical doctrine.” So, he and his young believers reached a fateful decision. They were now set to infiltrate the behemoth organizations of The Reverend Jonathan, “Jon” Paul Crystal, and The Reverend Billy Ray Rose. Freeny’s Army’s goal: expose the truth about these “Godopolies,” as he called them, and disgorge their ungodly underbellies.

The two evangelical leviathans were on dueling missions, determined to secure dominance by whatever means necessary. Their unprecedented crusades included multiple, coast-to-coast events labeled “The God Tour,” by secular and religious media observers. This was the last straw for Pastor Freeny and his “band of believers.”

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Freeny’s fifty-six member, five-year-old congregation—‘New Birth Non-denominational Church’—was all that remained of a once burgeoning membership of over three hundred that worshipped in a small warehouse, later demolished. More than eighty-percent were now devoted followers of either the Crystal or Rose Ministries, or similar evangelical movements. The appeal of these and other “prosperity ministries” proved irresistible to his once-expanding flock, as it was to tens of millions worldwide. A few year earlier, New Birth was rescued by McMurtry’s foundation. Before the deal was reached and the location made a gift, he preached in a small grocery-store parking lot from the back of his aged pickup.

Pastor Earl B understood the demand on those who worried about his health, but was not willing to go quietly into that ‘good night.’ His army of twenty-somethings—who loved his unassuming, homespun personality, and his bible-based teaching—needed no urging to fight back. These young college students appeared more put off by what they saw as greed and hypocrisy, than was Pastor Earl B, if that were possible.

All this coursed through Freeny’s mind, as he stood behind what passed for a pulpit—a folding table with a small wooden table-top lectern outfitted with a microphone seldom used or needed. His faithful parishioners, bibles in hand, ears perked, prepared to hear the sermon.

Two Months Later. The Interview.

On an October Saturday, Pastor Freeny gave a candid newspaper interview that changed his life. Dressed in faded overalls, cowboy boots, and a white long-sleeve shirt, he sat half-turned, an arm resting atop the back of a Wichita Falls Café booth. He spoke freely to Sue Ann Gaylen, friend, editor and sole reporter for the Archer City Record. It was a chance for him to vent. But Earl B unwittingly projected himself into the middle of the raging Crystal-Rose controversy. A week later, he was surprised to learn the entire article was reprinted in the Dallas Morning News’ Sunday Edition. It turned out that the paper’s editor was a college classmate and friend of Sue Ann’s. Sue insisted she had no idea the article would be picked up, but did not seem upset by it.

Among other biting comments, Freeny referred to Crystal’s and Rose’s face-off as a battle between “two, self-appointed CEOs in God, Inc.” He called them “Pulpit Pirates” who dismissed non-Christian Faiths and were bent on hijacking their own Faith, and that of their followers, for the profit of the few: namely, themselves.”

Pastor Earl B, as he was affectionately called, made it clear he was not denouncing all of TV evangelism, nor all high-profile evangelists. Those who knew the country preacher were not surprised by the article. He would often take to his pulpit and speak plainly to his congregation. Freeny always made a point of elaborating on “the simplicity of God’s message, as expressed by his own son, Jesus Christ of Nazareth.”

On this Sunday, he delivered just such as message.

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“Christ had a simple message of love, forgiveness, and redemption. But today, a bunch of ‘Madison Avenue Prophets’ figure that message ain’t good enough anymore. They gotta spice it up a little. No, a whole lot. Listen to me real good. Now, I know y’all look at me standing up here every Sunday, and I know ya’ must be saying to yourself: Now, if God is truly God— and he is—then how come he’s blessing all them TV evangelists out there, those who drive cars worth more than a dozen little houses here in Archer City, who fly around in private jets worth tens of millions, while our dearly beloved Pastor Freeny drives a beat up pickup truck that still needs a new Inspection Sticker, and he’s living in a three-roomer? Right? Pray with me, now.

“You say, maybe his faith is weak. That must be it. That has to be it! Pastor’s faith is weak, just like you hear some TV prosperity preachers suggest. Can I get an Amen here? And you think, if he—and maybe even if you—just had a little more faith, if you believed enough, trusted in God a little bit more, then you could have all them things, too. You could be living in a forty room mansion with a big ceiling-high, 8K flat screen TV in every room; wearing thousand dollar suits; driving a Bentley, or a Mercedes Maybach or some such thing.

“Actually, I don’t think they make those anymore. Maybe the one Diddy bought for three-hundred-sixty-thousand dollars for his son’s sixteenth birthday was the last one. Lord, help me. I’m meddling, now. Anyway, that’s another story. And I like Diddy. But I digress.

“We’ll I’ve got news for everybody. I do have faith. It was faith, my M-16 and some M25 rocket launchers  that got me outta’ Fallujah in Iraq, and outta Afghanistan —alive, when so many fellow Marines and soldiers did not. Did they not have enough faith, or was I just blessed?”

Pastor Earl B stroked away errant tears, never missed a beat.

“And what about those millions of Iraqis, Afghans, the Kurds, and others who did not deserve to die? Did they just have the wrong faith? Pray with me, y’all.”

Freeny swiped his forehead with a crumpled white handkerchief.

“I have unwavering faith in the word of God. I have faith that God’s blessings cannot be measured by a… a bank balance, or by your fleet of cars, or by your offshore accounts, or your 70 million dollar Gulf Stream Jet, or your Armani suits. Even when you hear folks asking—no, demanding you part with most of your financial blessings, ask yourself why you are being asked to do such a thing in order to receive that same eartly treasure back, in kind.

“It makes no sense. I know they promise that your giving will be multiplied. Nothing wrong with giving. It is blessed to give, but to give as you purpose in your heart, and cheerfully. That is what the Word teaches under Grace, not the Law, right? Oh, I’m sorry, I’m not supposed to teach that to you. You are, however, supposed to ready, study, and know for yourselves, no matter what I say up here. Look it up.

“So, does their God deal only in cash? Mine deals in faith and credit. I thank God for my health, for my friends, and I am indeed rich. Y’all hear what I said? I am a rich man. Let the word go out, Earl B. Freeny—the late Elizabeth and Gerald Freeny’s boy—is rich.

“Now, don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying all evangelists are the same. I believe most are sincere, dedicated messengers of God—at least those whose names you never hear. And they ain’t afraid to use the words sin, Heaven, Hell, repent, and others. I’m just saying that we have to be good stewards of what God has given us. We have to do that, and that includes our air and water—this precious Earth. Word to those so-called believers who scoff an mock the notion of climate change.

“And we must beware of false prophets. Satan, the Devil, was once an angel, you know. His name was Lucifer. He is not to be underestimated. Just telling him to get behind us won’t work, if we then slow down so he can catch up to us. Too often, he’s in front wearing a white a robe and driving a Bentley. We must be ever vigilant.

“By the way, tell me something—talking bout wealth and power—tell me who chauffeured Jesus’s golden chariot? Who made his hand-tailored, Italian suits.? Who handled his diversified investment portfolio? Who staffed his sea-side resort mansion?

“Look, do not depend on me, or any other preacher to be your only source for what God wants you to know. Open your bibles, right now. Go to Second Timothy, Chapter 2, Verse 15. C’mon now. Read out loud with me. Say it! Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.?

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Like it or not, Pastor Earl Bastrop Freeny—no one dared use his middle name—was one of the most quoted men in America, for now. His anonymity was gone. While he had not sought the fame, nor the notoriety, he would not flinch. He was still determined to “fly below the radar,” despite what was coming. And what was coming, even as he spoke, was a 3-car caravan of nondescript vehicles make its way into Archer City down Highway 25.