He Said She Said, Then They All Said (1)

Back in August of 2023, in the context of a study on the doctrine of sinless perfectionism, I wrote a post about the Brunstad Christian Church (BCC), a century-old Norwegian denomination that has grown to over 200 churches in 54 countries, with perhaps 1,700 members in North America. The gist of what I had to say was that finding the truth online is a tremendously difficult task these days. Certainly, opinions vary wildly about the BCC and its leadership. I opted to reserve judgment.

The post is called “He Said She Said”, and the response to it has been unusual, intense and exceedingly polarized. If anything, the reaction proves my point: it’s awfully hard to find the truth online these days.

Comments on the post, the BCC and its current leadership have been pouring in for two years; the most recent received this morning. Sadly, when readers comment years after a post’s original publication, few others see what they have to say. I thought it was time to share the entire comment string, which I’ve broken into two posts.

Because the BCC originated in Norway, many of the commenters are almost certainly Norwegian. As with anyone writing in a second language, some comments are more comprehensible than others. In the interests of clarity, I have cleared up a few typographic errors and inconsistencies in some comments. I trust their authors will forgive me, since it’s evident all parties would like to have their stories heard.

Each orange heading is a new comment, with the occasional noted interjection from yours truly. All comments were anonymous.

April 14, 2024 6:53 pm

Go to the members who were wronged and driven out by arrogance and hypocrisy and find out for yourself the damage and hatred that people like Kora Smith and his ilk commit with blatant abuse on a regular basis.

April 23, 2024 12:35 am

No Apostle of Jesus threatens others with violence like Kora Smith has done. It’s almost unbelievable, but this is what happens when one person has absolute power. He is a thug.

June 27, 2024 2:59 pm

Simon Peter literally cut a guy’s ear off, but go off, queen.

July 03, 2024 7:45 am

Sorry, but can you back this up somehow or is it something you have just heard and thought to be true? Kåre is such a loving person, I could never imagine him doing such a thing

On June 27, 2024 4:04 pm, I replied:

Kinda feel like I missed something here...

December 31, 2024 10:13 pm

Jesus said, “Enough of this violence” and healed the man’s ear. How can an apostle miss that memo?

February 17, 2025 9:50 pm

In Norway at Brunstad Conference Center about 20 months ago, Kora Smith appeared on stage with two brothers. His intended purpose was to explain about how hundreds of thousands of dollars (or much more) had apparently gone missing. Kora asked these two, “DID YOU STEAL THE MONEY?” Only Kora Smith knows where all the money is hidden. It was as if we were watching the Three Stooges on stage as they claimed innocence and ignorance, and that they didn’t know ANYTHING! A partial truth is lying. These are your leaders, people.

Honesty, sincerity, truthfulness all have a ring or echo of authentic behavior and genuineness that Kora Smith has never possessed.

Brothers and sisters, it’s time to wake up.

You have been played with cunning and deceit. TO MAKE KORA SMITH AND SMITH FAMILY RELATIVES VERY WEALTHY IS NOT GOD’S WILL OR PURPOSE, even if Mr. Smith thinks it is! This has gone so far off the rails that it’s become a sick shadow of what it once was supposed to be, THE PILLAR AND GROUND OF THE TRUTH. WHAT WOULD JESUS DO? HE WOULD GIVE ALL THE MONEY BACK AND HELP THE POOR IN HIS OWN CHURCH. Is this too hard to understand? It’s simple. It just takes the willingness to do the right thing. And if Mr. Smith is not willing to do the right thing then find leaders with a true heart for God that don’t love money more. Amen.

March 16, 2025 6:04 pm

Why does the Lord God rebuke the prophets of Israel because they are like jackals in the wilderness? (Ezek. 13) What is it about the personalities of these religious leaders that inherently resembles the jackal? The jackal in many African societies is considered a trickster that can morph and appear as something different. They wear masks and are good actors. That’s why when they are speaking God’s word it is so difficult to tell what their real motive is. When the call is constantly for more money, you know something is amiss. Paul says these Christian false prophets transform and morph into righteous men, but the truth is that jackals only think about themselves. They are not serving anybody but themselves. They are always on the take, and God says these idiots “Can never have enough!” Don’t feed them! Free labor is volunteering with a free will. Forced labor is a duty imposed on you by idiot work bosses. Everything is extremely subtle, and that’s why so many miss the warning signs, and get trapped.

March 18, 2025 6:56 pm

What we think is one thing, what God thinks is another. What does God think about his so-called Apostle becoming a mega millionaire multiple times over? God is watching, and he says in Jeremiah 49:10, “I have discovered Esau’s treasure vault! I have uncovered his hiding places. Now he has nowhere to hide his loot! His children and kinsfolk (who share the loot) will be despoiled!”

Kora Smith did this on the backs of the brothers and sisters he was supposed to serve, not lord over. He owns a million-dollar home in the US where movie stars and VIPs have mansions. He isn’t fooling anyone except the simple-minded followers who send him their money and devotion. People had devotion to Jim Jones until he led them to their deaths. Again and again, Jesus warned everyone to watch out or you will be deceived.

March 21, 2025 10:24 pm

The Church of God is called the body of Christ on earth. Each member has a gift and a task, and no member is wholly independent because it needs and uses other member’s gifts and expertise to be able to function and do its own part. At the head of this body is a person designated to be an apostle, a messenger to tell the body what is coming from God, and what the members need to hear. In Israel, this job in the past was given to the sons of Eli.

They were not good men. They ran with selfish ambition and conceit. Power and domination were their ultimate goal, and defrauding people was their way of getting rich and getting more power. They tricked people who came with an offering to God. They manipulated everything to maximize their own ungodly profit and monetary gain, and it made God angry. God cursed the house of Eli, and the judgement was that never again anyone from the house of Eli would ever be in a position of trust or authority, AND no man of the house of Eli would even live out a normal life span.

Kora Smith and the goons that surround him have behaved just like the sons of Eli: arrogant, violent, and just plain stupid. God said, “It repents me that I have made Saul king of Israel.” What was Saul’s biggest mistake? Samuel told him to his face: You are arrogant! And your arrogance and pride is as the sin of witchcraft. How could Saul lead anyone else? Smith’s Friends needs genuine brothers with a true heart that are not geared for money but rather understand the immensity of the job God has given to lead the flock home. The house of Eli fell the house of Smith is crumbling. Good riddance to the theft and lies.

On March 22, 2025 7:41 am, I replied:

I’m following this back-and-forth with interest, but it would be much easier to process if everyone commenting picked a different anonymous name that is not “Anonymous”.

March 28, 2025 5:21 pm

For many years I witnessed many brothers and sisters humiliated, scorned, rejected, and cast out of Smith Friends Church. The reasons were manifold, but they always seemed flimsy and imitations of something that shouldn’t be happening but is because somebody decided over and over again to seriously judge these people and condemn them.

This is serious arrogance. This is self-exaltation on a grand imperious scale. It is doing and behaving against Jesus’s teachings. What is it that empowers such pride and pope-ish lording over others? It is a false teaching that “only they” are worthy of great honor, and “only they” have the correct understanding. Therefore “only they” HAVE THE MONOPOLY OF HONOR, everyone else is a harlot preacher. They teach this. And they constantly boast about themselves.

Wisdom says, “Let others praise you,” but they missed the memo. What is so dark is that this power that they oppressed others with, and which caused so much pain and misery; they loved the power! and punishment was their thing. Will they meet mercy when they meet God? I am not so sure. I have grandchildren in this church. I am extremely concerned that they grow up safe and sound. There are good people in this fellowship. They need to be heard.

April 04, 2025 6:00 pm

What is Christian spiritual abuse? Why is it so hidden and almost nobody talks or writes about it? Basically, the strong and powerful dominate, rule, and oppress those deemed less powerful. It is written in the Apocrypha that the man who takes authority to himself is hated. We know what Diotrephes did, throwing people out of the church. John said he was full of malice. So, he was faking his authority and lying to the church. He pretended to be this great authority, and he demanded for himself full obedience, and honor! How crazy is this? I have watched brothers battling it out for honor and domination; it’s not the Kingdom of God they are fighting for; it’s a lust and hunger for power over others.

In a sense, all of us are sitting in the famous narrative of Plato’s Cave. In the book of Acts, the Greeks are praised as God-fearing men. They dug deep for the truth and found it. In Plato’s Cave everyone is lying and deceiving everyone else with false narratives and false graphic depictions on the walls. Shadows of stick figures move across lighted walls, but the captives cannot tell what they are seeing, they have never been outside. All they know is what they have been told. This is what being raised in a bubble does, you have no idea what’s up and what’s down, you don’t know anything. The people are trapped, tricked, they cannot escape, and they are constantly being fed lies. This is spiritual abuse. The perpetrators of the lies do not care at all about the damage and destruction they are inflicting on these poor people as long as THEY are in control they can work their madness.

Ezekiel Ch. 34 is the spiritual abuse chapter, and God says it’s time to do something about it. It is demonic! It has destroyed many people. Jesus said, “It shall not be so among you!” Lording over others, taking away free agency and free choice is a sin they will have to answer for. Especially in the area of who marries whom. They have stuck their fingers in the pie for so long everything in this area is not sane. Who in their right mind would marry anybody they were not seriously in love with?

It’s become masters and slaves, not brotherhood, where Jesus says the elder should be as the younger! The younger are not know-it-alls, and they don’t get offended over trivialities. We have a right to expect that those who lead us are honest, just, and godly men who speak truth because only truth can save us.

April 09, 2025 5:26 pm

True disciples of Jesus, and especially a true apostle of Christ does not live in a million dollar palace in one of the most expensive places in America.

On April 09, 2025 5:41 pm, I replied:

Not to hijack the thread, but yes, absolutely.

April 09, 2025 6:12 pm

“You have been expensively bought, do not become the slaves of men” (1 Cor. 7) Do men want slaves? Oh yes! Power over others creates a cushy life. And it feeds a giant ego to have human beings under your power and control. The thing that self-righteous leaders often don’t see is that God is watching every detail in every situation closely as He says over and over in many passages. James the brother of Jesus wrote that we who teach and lead are going to be judged more strictly, so they better get it right. Do they get it right? Are they examples to the believers? If they are too high up the answer is no. If there is arrogance, pride, unrest, suspicion, hatred and just plain old mule meanness, the answer again is no.

What’s going wrong? James 4 from the beginning says what’s going seriously wrong. These people just don’t like each other and all they can do is judge and fight. I saw elderly sisters, laboring for years without acknowledgement of their contributions, very little affirmation and support, and a whole lot of heaviness and heartache. It was as if people did not value them much, and when you don’t value someone, you judge and denigrate them. It was just plain arrogance, haughty self-important arrogance. God says he will bring people like this down whoever they are.

In Oslo, I watched for several years the brewing storm which pitted the two leading brothers against each other. This episode was dark and ugly. The accusations that flew were frivolous, even funny. One leading individual said another leader called him a “caricature”. Really? The result of this incredible folly was that one of these fellows got driven out, condemned, judged so severely by so many he soon died. People, this should not be.

One thing is certain, on judgement day many people are going to get the surprise of their lives. All the judgements, all the condemnations, all the mocking and abuse, all the backbiting and slander, and especially all the condemnation of young children OVER NOTHING! At 7 years old my daughter was condemned for having bangs! Her mother thought her hair was too wispy and got in her face too much, so she cut her bangs. A 7-year-old child was ostracized and condemned and traumatized for years. The sister that did this did it to please her higher ups! This is truly how dark these people are. It’s like an ignorance that they are proud of. It’s like an arrogance that the conceit in their hearts applauds. Where does most of this toxic attitude come from? Well, it doesn’t come from the Spirit, it comes from the flesh. But the leaders of this toxicity come from the House of Smith. It’s leadership sickness. They have usurped power and bossed people to their deaths! Courage is needed to find good leaders.

To be continued