I am Melvin Jones, former member of First Baptist Church of Glenarden.

But you’ve known that since the site first went public.

I’ve decided to tell you a little more.

I became a Christian around 1972. Unlike many of my counterparts, I don’t remember the exact day, the exact time, the exact location in the building, or the weather outside (except that it was in the winter - more or less).

I never had one of those really neat testimonies. You know, the one where I tell you I was living wild, drinking, lying, cursing, and having sex all the time. As far as I could tell, I didn’t think I was in Satan’s hip pocket. I didn’t steal, or cheat (much). And I never killed anybody, or really wanted to (too badly). I went to school (I was Catholic until I left home for college), did my homework after watching Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show, and did most of the things a painfully shy, middle-class Black teenager did from day to day. When it came time to go to college, I managed to snag an Air Force ROTC scholarship and spent four and a half years at Tuskeegee Institute (back before they changed their name to Tuskeegee University). I was of those people who are really resistant to the Gospel. I was okay in my own eyes and my life was pretty good. My future was so bright I had to wear sunglasses.

There, I was a painfully shy, teen/adolescent who was quietly enjoying himself. I pledged Arnold Air Society (a professional fraternity tied to ROTC) and Alpha Phi Alpha. Yes, I was an Alpha ape. I worked somewhat steadily toward an Electrical Engineering degree and actually finished half a year ahead of my fellow engineers.

While in college, I was told about Jesus Christ and the need for salvation. I generally argued the evangelists into the ground and tried to make them look stupid. It didn’t do much for me. Shortly after leaving home for school, I decided that Catholicism was at best a scam and at worst a complete waste of time. There were so many rules, and so many ways to do what you wanted to do and make sure you didn’t get into eternal trouble for doing it as long as you made it to confession on Saturdays or Sundays.

Consequently, as soon as I got to college, I dumped Sunday Mass and religion in general. I became (tah dah!) an agnostic. I figured there is a supreme being, or at least a prime mover, but he/she wasn’t all that interested in what we do. My biggest problem was trying to figure out why I should do the right thing without being a hypocrite. And doing right because I didn’t want to go to hell was just too hypocritical.

Everything was quite pleasant. I borrowed money for my first year of school(a little over $1800!), got the rest paid for by the Air Force, didn’t have to go to Viet Nam, didn’t have to work while I was in school. Life was good.

Then my girlfriend got saved. I mean “real live, gotta make a difference so I won’t wear short dresses any more” kind of saved. And I could see a difference in her. Yeah, she was still Peggy, but she was different. And that difference made a difference in my life. I decided to seek salvation.

But here’s the trouble: My girlfriend was saved at a primitive (I don’t say this in a disparaging way) Pentecostal Apostolic church. The fact that she was willing to change her life so much really caught my attention. Once I decided I wanted to become a Christian, I had to go through the whole tarrying thing. That is one of the reasons I don’t remember exactly when I became a Christian. I do believe I became a Christian long before I was given the bogus task of “…speaking in tongues as evidence of being filled with the spirit…” We got absolutely no teaching of any worth. We were consistently told that we were not to ask questions. Just let go and let God. The only things we were encouraged to do was go to church, go to bible study, and…well…that’s about it.

I left Alpha Phi Alpha and Arnold Air Society, and came within a hair’s breadth of leaving AFROTC. A very wise Lietenant Colonel talked me out of it. I had been convinced that no self respecting Christian should be in the Air Force. I became one of those Christians stuck in an incredibly burdensome, rules wracked, existence where if you mess up, you lose your salvation and you have to start all over again., Ispent the next six years thinking: “And I’m supposed to share this with other people? I don’t think so.” Thus I wasted the first six years of my walk with Christ. It was actually more of a solitary meandering than a walk with any purpose or direction.

I got back to the states with two children. Two boys. And while I am not one to hear God tell me something, I was washing the dishes one evening while my wife was going over some bible stuff with the children. At that point, I got a very clear impression, or whatever you wish to call it, that training the children was my responsibility. At that point I realized that if I was going to train the children, I had doggone well know what’s in the Bible. And to do that, I had to study. So I did.

And at that point, I began to run afoul of the pimps and their local fans. Although at that point they were more proto-pimps, with Reverend Ike as the Alpha Pimp. John Avanzini, Ken Copeland, Frederick Price and a host of other second generation Charismatics/Word Faith phoneys were just getting really big. PTL was about to break out into Big Dogdom, and we were surrounded by word faith folks there in Panama City Florida. As I studied, I saw contradictions between what the Bible said and what the W-F crowd was saying. I tried really hard to make the two match. I remember struggling with the apostle John’s salutation that his readers prosper and kept trying to make that say that Christians were supposed to be rich, period. But God was, apparently, too gracious to me. I ended up breaking with the crowd and pursued orthodoxy.

After a fairly circuitous road, we ended up in Washington DC. Here we attended a CMA (Christian Missionary Alliance) church, a Reformed Presbyterian Church, First Baptist Church of Glenarden for some seven or eight years, and finally the church I have been attending for the last four and a half years.

Six months ago, I decided I had to do something about the pimpery destroying the church, locally and nationally. I talked to John Coleman. I knew television would be out of the question just yet so I threw some money at him to help his radio ministry in Los Angeles. Then, the technology fell together. I got a webmaster (a really talented webmaster, by the way), a server, and some software. Armed with years of learning and outrage at the pimps, this effort came to be.

That’s who I am.