Wolves in Fundamentalists Clothing…

For some time, there has been a group of people running around deceiving people into thinking they are Bible-believers. Not only are they deceiving the weak Christian, they are giving the cause of Christ a bad name and are splitting churches left and right!

 

First, who are these people? They are devout followers of a man named Peter Ruckman. They affectionately call him 'The Doc' and will quickly tell you just how smart he really is. Well, he really is brilliant at his craft: if you read some of his work, you will see that he hides his ignorance in a multitude of words. Ruckman is a pastor of a church in Florida and the leader of a small college. The real irony of Ruckman is that he claims to believe the KJV, claims it is the Word of God, and denies the qualifications of the Pastor. Let's consider the qualifications of the Pastor and compare them to Mr. Ruckman:

1 Tim 3:1 This is a true saying, If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work. (2) A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach; (3) Not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre; but patient, not a brawler, not covetous; (4) One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity; (5) (For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?) (6) Not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil. (7) Moreover he must have a good report of them which are without; lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.

A bishop must be:

• Blameless: Anytime someone has two of his three wives leave him, he could hardly be called 'blameless'. Second, anyone who openly and notoriously uses as much foul and vulgar language as Ruckman does certainly is not blameless.
  

  The Husband of One Wife: Ruckman has had three wives, not one. He has been married and divorced twice, neither were for adultery. Now, he is working on his third wife.
  

• Of good bahaviour: Again, the man has an absolutely filthy mouth. Is this well-behaved?
  

  One that ruleth well his own house: Which house is Ruckman ruling? The house with his first wife? His second? Or his third? If the man cannot keep a wife and take care of a home, how could we dream to imagine that he is qualified to attend to the needs of a church?
  

• Not a novice: Many people believe this means immature. Though I would contend this aged man is immature, being a novice has nothing to do with maturity, it is a measure of one's lack of knowledge or ability in a given area. Ruckman has demonstrated his lack of knowledge of God, salvation, and ultimately the very Word of God.
  

  In one of his newsletters, Ruckman claims that the apostles used the 1611 KJV. In fact, not only did the apostles not use the KJV, the English language did not exist then.
  

  Ruckman teaches 'Faith+Works'.
  

  Ruckman teaches that the Earth existed, was destroyed by God and then recreated.
  

• Apt To Teach: To teach, one must have some knowledge. By making the claims he has, Ruckman has proven his knowledge is lacking.
  
• Not a brawler: We often think of 'brawling' as fighting with your hands. Again, this is not necessarily true. It would include assaulting someone in any way, including verbally. When Ruckman cannot defeat a logical argument with fact, he regularly results to baseless assaults with untruths and foul language against anyone who he believes is his enemy.
  

 

Sadly, the Ruckmanites have modeled themselves after their leader. Most of them (giving them the benefit of the doubt, actually all of them I have met or conversed with) have become the same bitter, brash, harsh, foul-mouthed, church splitter he has. Not one of these traits are Christ-like. Jesus certainly was not weak or effeminate, but everything he did was in love. This simply cannot be said of Peter Ruckman.

 

Second, the followers of Ruckman are a breed which thinks nothing of splitting a church. Their method is simple. They move into a church and begin to promote their trash. When people disagree, they begin their assault. If the Pastor, the shepherd ordained by God for that church, dares speak out against their heresy, they assault his character, lie about him and spread false doctrine. Ultimately, it reaches the point where the church chooses sides – the church splits and the devil wins.

 

I could continue here. What I wanted to get to is this: sadly, there are very few true fundamental Baptists. When we run across someone who claims to be a fundamental Baptist, we want to befriend them, we want to trust them and we want to fellowship with them. We must be very careful, though. These Ruckmanites are claiming to be fundamentalists, but they are really ravening wolves. If you are not careful, they will destroy you and, if given half a chance, your church.

 

There were even members of Teens-4-Christ who turned away from God to Ruckman. Now, while claiming to be KJV only, they deny the very truths of the Word of God. Some have even sank to the depths of teaching faith + works for salvation, some have split churches, etc.

 

This is the warning: even now, some of you are looking at other forums and getting drawn into Ruckmanism. I am not telling you what to do, but I am cautioning you to be very careful in who you associate with.

 

The easiest way to pick these people out, as well as their greatest flaw, is their denial of the original languages. No, you do not need to know Greek or Hebrew to study the Word of God (and the KJV is the preserved Word of God for the English-speaking people), but when you deny the Greek and Hebrew texts as valid, you are denying the Word of God.