This was posted on Stemberger's facebook and a friend of mine sent to me...
August 20, 2010
AN OPEN LETTER TO JAMAL JIVANJEE REGARDING CHURCH DISCIPLINE FOR SLANDER, DISHONESTY AND FALSE ACCUSATIONS-- with Twelve Questions.
Dear Jamal, it grieves me greatly to write this letter but you have left me no choice after attempting privately and Biblically to appeal to you on a number of occasions with no response. God our Father has set forth a process to resolve conflicts and disagreements between Christian brothers or when someone believes that they have been sinned against. This process is found in Matthew 18 and I Corinthians Chapters 5 & 6. Please read and re-read these scriptures.
You have sinned against me numerous times by making public statements that are both false and slanderous. To attempt to resolve this conflict as the scriptures teach, I had a face to face meeting with you several months ago in my office. This failed to resolve the issue I had with you, namely your insistence on publicly stating things that were not true and also failing to seek the facts out before speaking. After our meeting you again, continued to issue false and slanderous statements.
Then, I initiated a second meeting in my office and I brought along two other men as witnesses. One of witnesses was Blake Lorenz, your pastor at the time, the other, the businessman who created the trust fund for Rifqa. Instead of freely dialoging and engaging us with back and forth conversation, you said the only thing you were going to say at this meeting was to read out loud a long prepared formal statement.
After you read the statement, we each began to gently and carefully try to help you see several situations where you had publicly stated things that were simply not true. You did not dispute the facts presented but merely stoically listened. The three other parties in the room all clearly saw this pattern in your behavior and we all tried to kindly and patiently help you see the error, but you refused to recognize it or even show the slightest remorse. I personally and passionately pleaded with you in this meeting that your facts, your spirit and motive were all wrong and begged you to not keep moving around from city to city, "prophetically" offending people with public declarations and then leave for yet another city with no real local accountability.
This meeting also failed to bring about reconciliation between us because you refused to repent and publicly recant your slanderous comments-- and then again started making similar false public statements in the weeks after that group meeting.
I will acknowledge and thank you for the voice mail you left me in the weeks after that meeting where you admitted that (while you still fully stand by and would not correct any of your previous statements) you should have called me and with questions first before you went public. You also committed to me in that call that you would not do that again. While I appreciated that private call, the statement should have been made public since your slander and false statements against me were made in public. At that point, because you showed some responsiveness, I was prepared to just let the matter go and overlook this offense and move on-- even though you refused to publicly apologize and make corrections about matters you knew were false.
However, I was simply stunned, when a friend sent me your latest statement "Open Response to Rifqa Bary's Attorneys Video Interview" (which you did not even copy me on) with the rather unbelievable accusation that all of Rifqa's lawyers-- but especially me-- are "corrupt" and engaging in "criminal" activity. I contacted you, again in private, and asked you to please stop and publicly recant from the continued gossip, slander, false accusation and dishonesty toward me and the other lawyers and received no response. On all these occasions where you have been approached, you have failed to respond by admitting what you said was wrong and publicly correcting yourself and or apologizing-- even when presented with written documentation showing your statements to be wrong.
However, the seriousness and outrageous nature of your most recent public claims, coupled with the fact that you hold yourself out as a pastor, compels me to also respond-- and to do so publicly.
My understanding of the next step in the Biblical process of reconciliation and or church discipline is to approach your pastor/s or the spiritual authority of your local church so this matter might be dealt within your church leadership. However, it is my understanding from your writings that you do not believe in, nor submit yourself to any "institutional" church with a Biblical leadership structure of elders and or deacons. Therefore, I am compelled to submit this matter to the Christian community where you appear to have most of your activity and where you have sinned against me most regularly and egregiously.
Jamal, there are several questions that must be asked of you:
1) First, why have you failed to write and publicly rejoice and celebrate in the obvious-- namely that Rifqa Bary WON her case!!! and that an enormous historical victory against radical Islam and the enemy of our souls has been scored?
2) Why have you not written to publicly thank and recognize Rifqa's legal team who have collectively freed her-- but instead you return again to slander the very people that Rifqa herself believes are the real heros?
3) Why have you not admitted in hind sight that the legal strategy which you repeatedly and publicly criticized and denounced as wrong and foolish--- was in fact RIGHT because it worked and Rifqa is now free and well on her way to complete freedom in the US?
4) Why is it that, even after Rifqa called you and gently asked you to stand down from criticizing her lawyers and told you that she supports them and the legal strategy, did you continue to criticize and slander her lawyers and did not abide by her requests?
5) Why did you not tell your followers that Rifqa herself also eventually stopped communicating with you because of your public divisiveness and your refusal to honor her requests?
6) Why did you not come to me privately and ask questions, and seek information and try to understand what was happening (something you admitted you should have done) before publicly spreading gossip, slander and your latest sensational and completely unfounded charge about "corrupt and criminal activity"?
7) Why have you not written about the fact that you knew I received an unsolicited check in the mail for $5,000. for attorneys fees from the creator of the trust fund and that I SENT THIS CHECK BACK to the trust and the check was never cashed and that I (along with all the other lawyers on the team) were never paid a single penny for representing Rifqa?
8) Why are you not telling people that you were freely given a complete copy of the accounting of the trust fund by me personally, in my office and that you could find no questionable or inappropriate expenses on it?
9) Why are you brazenly accusing me and Rifqa's other lawyers of "corrupt" and "criminal" activity but have failed to clearly state what so-called "crime" has been committed and have never reported these so-called "crimes" to the police?
10) Why did you in your previous writings, appear with great authority and certainty, attempt to interpret complicated state and federal statutes and render legal opinions misleading perhaps hundreds of people in the complex areas of immigration, criminal and dependency law and yet never had the first hour of legal training to qualify you to do so?
11) Why did you publicly oppose Lou Engle, Tony Perkins, and other national Christian leaders in their attempt to help raise money for Rifqa's trust fund and will you now take responsibility for the fact that because of your opposition, Rifqa has very little money to make a transition with, live on, and most importantly pay for medical bills for follow up cancer treatments in the future?
12) Why did you leave Blake and Beverly Lorenz's church immediately after they announced from the pulpit that they fully supported Rifqa's legal team and the legal strategy and then turn on them also, leading other members of that church to leave so that you could then start your own church ministry?
Your statement, an "Open Response to Rifqa Bary's Attorneys Video Interview" really did not address anything that attorney Kort Gatterdam said in the interview. Instead, you used it as another opportunity to slander me and others with a new and simply outrageous accusation that I engaged in some vague and undefined "corrupt" and "criminal" behavior. And what did I do to warrant a charge of this seriousness in your view? First, I submitted my time sheet of the hours I spent as a lawyer on Rifqa's case to the man who created the trust fund after he requested it. Second, you claim Rifqa was "pressured" by me to write a book. I am not sure you understand what it takes to write a book but you cannot pressure anyone to do a task so intense and huge. Further, ever since I first met Rifqa she has always told me SHE wanted to write a book! When an author contacted us about helping her do that, those opportunities were presented to her which could have produced an income stream for her to live on and which would also help get her testimony and story out to the public. Because of her focus on finishing school, she freely decided to not write a book at that time. Hardly corrupt-- and certainly not a crime. Both of these things were fully explained to you in our second meeting in front of witnesses and you still hold onto your false narrative and repeat it again, leaving out the relevant facts you were told happened.
Jamal, you have misled perhaps thousands of people with bad information on Rifqa's case and personal slander against the very people who are directly responsible for saving our little sister's life. Yet you refuse to apologize or correct the wrong statements made. Instead, you continue to arrogantly write as if you have said or done nothing wrong and continue to try and find fault only with others—but never yourself. You are holding on tight to a highly subjective interpretation of personal beliefs but will not stop long enough to humble yourself and consider that you just might have got it largely wrong in most of your written criticisms. You have now become the center of all truth and no one (not even the facts) can convince you otherwise. This is a dangerous place to live. It is the kind of mentality that cults often form around.
You started out with a significant place and an important role in the Rifqa Bary story as the first Christian she met who also converted from Islam. Because of this role, we initially trusted you and included you in on some communications. We directed media interviews to you. We assumed you wanted to do what was in Rifqa's best interest and what she wanted. Unfortunately, as time progressed, you became increasingly conspiratorial, divisive, proud and self-serving. In the name of "doing the right thing" and "speaking the truth", you behaved foolishly by fighting and opposing the only people who were in a position to really help Rifqa, and in doing so you, betrayed us all-- including Rifqa-- over and over again. Instead of speaking out against the Muslim lawyers and CAIR, who were fighting us brutally and unfairly at every turn, you only chose to oppose Rifqa's lawyers, most of whom were also brothers in the faith. This is utter madness.
One Christian leader who knows you and is aware of the situation has said:
"Jamal is what the Bible calls a scorner. As opposed to a wise man, a scorner offers no wisdom, but attacks, accuses, and criticizes with no spiritual insight. Let us pray for his deliverance."
I too will pray for your deliverance and I will for the final time implore you to repent and see the sinfulness of your ways and make restitution to me personally and others by publicly recanting and correcting your factually wrong and slanderous statements. I do not wish to treat you, and encourage others locally and nationally to treat you, as an unbeliever and therefore outside the Church.
I believe that at heart Jamal, you are very well meaning, love Rifqa and attempt to seek after God wholeheartedly. But I also believe you are deeply deceived, misguided, filled with pride and arrogance, and badly in need of coming under the authority, accountability and discipleship of older and more mature men. Please take several days and weeks if necessary to and read and re-read this letter as difficult as it may be. The future legitimacy of your ministry in the wider body of Christ is at stake.
John Stemberger
