Missionaries from this organization regularly preach in the Evangelical Bergthaler Mennonite Churches (EBMC). They are typical neo-evangelical and come with the quintessential neo-evangelical compromises, errors and heresies, and they are many. Missionary Peter Enns is a frequent flyer through the churches and on Jan 6 of the 2022nd year of the Lord he preached a sermon on the epiphany, the wisemen visiting Jesus (he called them “kings”—the Bible doesn’t say they were kings). More on that sermon in a bit.
Though New Tribes Missions (NTM—now Ethnos 360) may have started with somewhat Biblical moorings in the 1940’s (though I highly doubt it, as evangelicalism in that day took an intentional step away from Biblical fundamentalism), it has become a heretical neo-evangelical organization, infamously known for the widespread serious crimes of sexual and physical abuse, which occurred in Bolivia, Senegal, East Brazil, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, and other nations, which is unsurprising since "evangelical" organizations are rife full of false professors playing church. The first missionaries went to Bolivia in 1942. In 1952, NTM opened a boarding school at Tambo, Bolivia, and that is where the first known cases of sexual abuse occurred, reports of girls being molested and raped. Through the decades after, child abuse occurred in a number of places where NTM missionaries worked, to varying degrees.
Some of the most disturbing situations involved boarding school staff (often “dorm fathers”) who preyed on and victimized the children entrusted to their care, in most cases missionary kids. Senegal was first brought to light in 2009, when several young adults and ex-students of Fanda, confronted the leaders at NTM-USA’s headquarters in Florida about sexual abuse they had endured.
Eventually, NTM agreed to use GRACE to investigate the abuse, who in Aug 2010 released a 67-page report on the abuse and failed response of NTM to the attempted reporting of that abuse. The report revealed up to 27 children were sexually abused and > 35 physically abused (beyond accepted corporal punishment). The report also revealed a backlog of 80 or 90 child abuse allegations worldwide. A breakdown of these allegations: child abuse in school setting (30); child on child abuse (21); child abuse within family (13); other (19). For many this was the first time they comprehended the magnitude of child abuse in the mission.
In Nov, 2010, NTM was petitioned to employ an outside agency to conduct additional investigations at NTM facilities. NTM refused to use GRACE, so they hired Pat Hendrix who created IHART and presented itself as an independent investigative firm, when it really wasn’t. She has compiled many reports on a number of different countries where NTM missionaries have worked.
Panama report: 103 credible allegations, 40 sexual abuse and 57 physical. 63 of the allegations had “preponderance of the evidence.” 10 offenders and 9 mission leaders were found to be culpable to varying degrees.
Bolivia investigation dated from 1952 to 2000. IHART reached a finding by a “preponderance of the evidence” were 41 physical abuse and 50 sexual abuse. 31 committed some level of misconduct (11 were deceased at time of investigation and 13 found to have committed sexual abuse). Five NTM leaders were found culpable of failure to protect the safety of children. None of these reports were ever released to the public but are shared by the victim here: http://fandaeagles.com/about/
Click here for some testimonies of the abuse. Instead of being forthright, honest and Biblical about the serious crimes of sexual and physical child abuse, NTM attempted to shovel it under the rug. How terribly evil is that, considering the bible says it would be better a “millstone” be “hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea” (Lk 17:2)! But how common this sort of evil is, and not only in “evangelical” organizations. As everything eventually became public knowledge with a push for justice especially by the girls who had been abused, NTM did what heretical organizations typically do: separate from the name. Henceforth: Ethnos 360.
I acknowledge that people make up stories and the ungodly MSM runs with it, doing everything possible to muddy and blaspheme Christianity, but that is not the case here. Some of these men have been charged with crimes, and multiple investigations prove these accusations to be true. People sometimes stand in amazement of how a so-called Christian organization becomes this corrupt, but when you believe and understand the Bible, the amazement should vanish into thin air. The Bible exposes these as wolves in sheep’s clothing and that is long before any of their immoral sins come to light. Like Ravi Zacharias. And others. That NTM attempted to hide these wicked sins reveals their true nature.
Their false doctrine, dividing scripture into levels of importance, massive compromise, denial of doctrine and scripture, refusal to preach certain things, convoluted and contradictory teachings, heresies they embrace, hatred for judging, blatant disobedience to Scripture, false gospels they embrace and propagate (corrupting grace, Christ, repentance, love, etc), the massive amounts of scripture they corrupt, the false modern “Bible” versions they embrace, the ungodly CCM music and other worldly music they listen to, the unBiblical standard of dress, the perversion of “grace” and “love,” and many such things reveal their true nature long before the immorality and covering up takes place.
As a typical neo-evangelical sermon, Peter Enns message reflected the normal compromise (music in this case) and corruption (of scripture) in evangelicalism. It was preached as if the wisemen (”kings” according to Enns) were visiting the baby Jesus in Bethlehem 2 weeks after His birth. Jesus was not “a babe” (Lk 2:12) when the wisemen visited Him, but “a child” (Mattt 2:11) which means he was around the age of two at the least. King Herod’s insistence of fulfilling his envious malice, resulted in all children killed two years of age and under (Mt 2:16-18). The wisemen didn’t visit Jesus two week after His birth, but up to two years. This was supposedly the theme of his sermon.
In the beginning of the sermon he provides an apologetic on modern contemporary music. Concerning the music just been sung by young ladies, which clearly was contrary to how music had always been done in church:
“I appreciate the music in the church and the development and growth of our music teams … All of us are growing older and as we grow older we see changes taking place and sometimes we kinda just grit out teeth and dig our heels in and say we’ve never had it this way before, so it must be wrong.”
The worldly and fleshly beat and syncopated breathy and sensual tones, ice cream cone style, is not wrong according to him, we just have to accept the change since times change. This is plain heresy and about as contrary to the Bible as we can get. Read here as to whether Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) Is Honouring to God.
He goes on to claim that this is what is happening in Psalms, so he also corrupts scripture in the process, eisegetically bending it to support his position. This is the behaviour of heretics. Propagating heresy and ungodly teaching and then bending and twisting scripture to make it fit. Apparently this is,
“good singing” and such “good singing . . . is empowering the preacher to preach. It’s easier to preach the Word of God and teach the Word of God when there’s good music, because it draws our hearts to the Lord, it opens our hearts to the teaching of God’s Word. I would like to commend you young ladies for getting up and singing and praising and so forth God through song and teaching…”
If it’s new, it’s not true; if it’s true it’s not new. The music that he is referring to, obviously modern contemporary, is new and it’s wrong. It is different from the past because it is new, it is worldly, it is ungodly and people that love this are playing church and Christianity, while being yoked with their fleshly nature and the world, trying to amalgamate the two into Christianity. It doesn’t work. It’s evil, spiritual adultery. Unclean and profane golden calf music. Very tragic to see the serious heresy being pushed and influencing the people in this church. He is “turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Ju 1:4).
He is denying God by denying what He teaches and demands. Christians don't have the liberty to sin. False worship is sin. The Holy Spirit doesn't manifest works of the flesh. That isn’t liberty, its lasciviousness. The Bible calls it spiritual adultery and those who have this type of mindset and love the worlds music while attempting to conform it to the Bible, are the profane and unruly enemies of God (Jam 4:4). Not His friends, because they rebel against Him and don’t do what He says (Jn 15:14), while true believers are the friends of God (Jam 2:23; Jn 15:14-19; cf. 14:23-24). True Christians change. They are predestined to conform to the image of the Son (Rom 8:29-30).
He even refers to “the old King James” once, on the way side, when quoting a scripture, but he makes sure to include the word “old” as if it’s “old.” Is it older than the original writings of God given by inspiration 2,000 and more years ago in the Hebrew Masoretic Text and Greek Textus Receptus, which have been preserved perfectly for us to this very day? No it isn’t, so why malign the KJV about age, especially considering his earlier statements about keeping up with music? It appears he is embarrassed to be quoting the KJV that once in the sermon, knowing peoples view of it. That is a shame and disgrace, and if he weren’t so terribly compromised, he could’ve even gone to bat for the KJV.
What I am writing is foreign to most professing Christians because they don’t know the Bible, embrace perverted versions, have their minds filled with unBiblical teaching that bucks at contending for truth and reproving error and sin, have a corrupted view of the church, and other things, but most importantly because most are unregenerate. Thats the biggest issue, and then the other issues stream out from that umbrella tip. This is the road of apostasy because people don’t know what the words of God are, don’t understand and can’t apply the words of God. They don’t have a genuine faith, which easily gives people a replacement, impostor faith, producing stony, thorny, and then hard ground.
The heresies abound in this organization, and this likely only scratches the surface. So do remember dear reader, when you go to listen or support NTM, aka. Ethnos 360—like they exhort on their website: “Your gift to God’s work-large or small-is appreciated. You can also help others be blessed by taking part (Eph 4:17-19),”—the crimes they shovelled under the rug have mostly never been Biblically dealt with, their duplicitous and devious behaviour in how they handled these things, but also the corruption of Scripture, compromise and heresy. Of course God will deal with them in due time but this doesn’t ignore or negate your interaction with them and your support of their heresy.
Majority “evangelical” missionaries are wolves in sheep’s clothing (again, noted by their false doctrine before any immorality takes place), but that doesn’t stop people from embracing them. Separate yourself from “evangelical” churches, which are bastions of compromise, neo-evangelicalism, and worldly “Christianity.” Separate says God, not tolerate or accommodate or embrace. Don’t like separation? Then you don’t know God, for He is a God of separation.
“Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.” (2 Cor 6:17-18).