On the Canadian Political scene, a "christian" soldier presses onwards fighting for all things right and some things true. Apparently , The Hour* called this quixotic character, "one of the most powerful leaders of the Christian Right in this country."
He calls himself, Dr. Charles McVety. One of Dr? Charlie's Mac's jobs is working as the president of Canada Christian College. You'll find Chuck's faculty data here. Where he claims a D.Min from California State Christian University. According to the site, his dear wife, also has an honourary doctorate from that famous half Catholic seminary - "Canadian Semimary." (I'm sure they missed putting the hyphen in - it should have been Semi-Mary.)
But let's take a quick look at California State Christian University, where Brother Chuck got his Doctorate. On one of the many sites that appears to be inter-related to his world, the Evangelical Order of Certified Pastoral Counsellors of America (located in that famous American city, Burlington, Ontario) they have this to say about CSCU:
Located in beautiful North Ridge California, the CSCU is an accredited Christian educational institution that offers students the option of studying for their degree on-campus or by enrolling in their Distance-Learning program. There are Graduate and Undergraduate Degree Distance Education Programs that allow you to work towards earning your Bachelors, Masters or Doctoral Degree at your own pace. [emphasis added]
In the next line, they offer a link to the CSCU site that hasn't ever worked - sadly, they must not have got the memo that CSCU actually has a website up (as of the last couple of months - and not to be confused with this one, as ToujoursDan pointed out in the comments below).
Here's a shot of their beautiful North Ridge Campus (which just happens to be around the corner from California State University Northridge - not that one would want to confuse the two). The shot is from Google's Streetview.
Oddly, this also happens to be home to Soul Christian Assembly Church, led by Dr. Samuel Kim. (Poor Soul seems to have some tax issues - scroll down on this page -although they are a tax exempt organization.) Now Soul's leader wouldn't happen to be the same Dr. Samuel Kim who has a degree from Canada Christian College and is a member of the extended faculty of the college, would it? And odder still, the map on the new website shows the campus in Irvine. According to this data, the phone number on the website is a cell phone, so perhaps CSCU actually is a mobile campus - meeting on something as small as a Honda 50 or as large as a semi-trailer. (Perhaps either one is parked behind the building in the above image.) Who knows?
I should add that I called the CSCU number on this link last fall. The number is located in the Koreatown area of Los Angeles. Each time I called the phone was answered by someone who may have been Korean and who spoke only limited English. She assured me this was CSCU but told me to call back. When I did call back I got the same person with the same request. (It didn't matter what time of day I called.) I haven't bothered to try the cell phone number.
Let me just say this to the Canadian media who offer a platform to Dr? Charles McVety. If I, a simple blogger, can find these details in a matter of minutes, then why can't you do the journalistic research you are paid to do to expose this publicity hound who purports to represent Canadian Christians. Is it perhaps that you hold Christians in such disdain that you take any opportunity to make it look like Dr? Chuck represents us all. Let me provide you with a piece of information you've chosen to ignore - he doesn't.
And, Dr. Charles McVety, if I'm wrong and you actually have an earned Doctorate from an accredited Christian University/Seminary or even Semi-Mary, then I apologize. All I'd ask is you produce your Doctoral dissertation and the ATS accreditation for the University where you got your D.Min. That should only take you a matter of moments, right. I'm sure your dissertation is bound and on a shelf in your office. (And Charles, please note that CSCU isn't on this list - perhaps its an oversite and you'll want Dr. Kim to get that cleared up.)
While you are at it, since your Master's is from the school your Dad started and where you are now President, perhaps you could share your Master's Thesis with us - and introduce us to your faculty advisers. Committed Christian that you are, I'm sure you'd want to clear up any possible misconceptions.
UPDATE: Perhaps I should have titled this post, what's a few degrees between friends. It would appear (via BD) that another prominent brother may have some issues with his academic qualifications. It will be interesting to see if anyone else investigates this and what the outcome is. (If the brother is found to be untruthful, should one reasonably expect him to step down from his recently granted position of authority.) The WaPo has picked up the story on their blog, On Faith.
UPDATE 2: What's really funny is Bene D reminded me that I purchased a few websites when I was doing my research: californiastatechristianuniversity.com, .net and .org. They are available to the highest bidder - unless you'd like me to grant you a degree instead. The lineup starts to the right (of course).
UPDATE 3: Read Sonja's comment and that of ToujoursDan who points to California State Christian University Canada's website. One has to love the food shots for this site. Incredible. Click here to view a screen cap of the site's page source that has this line in the meta: California State Christian University - Official Website - Official Website, really!?? (Note: This line is the title bar of the site.) Ownership of the site, normally available on a WhoIs search is hidden behind a Domain by Proxy registration. No transparency here. The Evangelical Order of Certified Pastoral Counsellors of America web registration is also hidden by Domain by Proxy registration as well. Not that I want to see a pattern here or anything. Oh. And BTW. Apparently, EOCPC can grant Doctorate Degrees according to Dr. George Madden's bio on this page. Who knew?
You also might join a good friend of mine in finding the last name in the Faculty list as being somewhat disconcerting / amusing. Scroll to the very bottom for Dr. Young Girl Oh. Screen cap here.
Note ToujoursDan does a great job of following some of the same rabbit trails on his blog.
See this earlier post of mine that features McVety. See the post from Bene D that provoked today's post here. See Mark Petersen's post here. Any "Canadian media" reading this: let any of us know if you'd like some research training. We'd be more than happy to help. We can teach you all about "the Google."
*The Hour is a CBC program that suggests what might happen in Canada if you mixed the DNA of Colbert and Stewart - and created a Stroumboulopoulos.
