Saturday, July 7, 2007

The Pseudo Rev Who is a Fraud

Just who is this "Rev" James M. Sutter, exposer of hate on the web? He has made many claims about himself over the years, but the best place to start is with his own blogs, viz: "Just the Facts."
[Update 8/04/2007 Sutter has moved his "Just the facts blog to his AOL web page and did some editing. Second update 9/08/2008, Sutter has again reinvented himself and edited his "Just the fabrications" again however he left the date the same leaving the impression that this was the original posting. What Sutter doesn't realize is that AOL allows anyone to FTP to anyones web page; the evidence is there for all to see ftp://hometown.aol.com/revjimsutter! Sutter changed his "Just the Facts" Xmas eve 2007 but left the old date of Monday, April 23, 2007. It seems the "man of God" Lies again. ]
The first claim is that he enlisted in the Navy. Yet the photo he posts of himself "on leave"
is not a regular Navy uniform but in fact a Navy Jr ROTC uniform. This is not a picture of him home on leave, but a picture of him home after a day in high school. (Note 8/07: he has remove this picture and the one of the GI Joe from the new profile on AOL; I wonder why?) He also claims that in the Navy, he specialized in
SWEOD, Special Weapons Ordinance Disposal and Intelligence. At times, I was TAD’d to Special Ops units. For those who understand, my NOD and AQDs were: 1635, KG2, 3Q1, USNAVCENT/FIFTHFLT.” (note 8/07 he has added this disclaimer "This does not mean I was a SEAL. Please do not misunderstand, and do not believe the claims of those who say I was.")

With a picture of a GI Joe doll in combat gear (amusingly titled me+in+gear) to show what he used to wear. However, on a web page exposing military phonies Heroes or Villains?, Sutter has been exposed as a liar, and I quote: "there are NO men listed in the SEAL database with the last name SUTTER." (Note: this has been removed and Sutter has added a disclaimer, although this doesn't absolute him of giving the "impression" he was a Navy Seal). He was also exposed as a Navy Seal impostor at The Special Operations Bulletin Board. "...this man was publicly exposed as a SEAL impostor. In my opinion, the current display on the web page has all the earmarks of a pitiful and pathetic effort to hang onto those claims while leaving nothing for those who exposed him to use against him." More on his Navy career later.

The "Rev'" Jim Sutter claims to be an
independent Baptist Minister

"I received my “Calling” to ministry around 1985 or so, and since I was Catholic, I started off in my local church (St. Luke’s) as a Commentator and Lector, then received training and certification as a Eucharistic Minister. At that point I volunteered in various ministries, as a lay minister at the Aristocrat Nursing Home, Lakewood Hospital and an adult day-care program at Fairview Hospital. I knew that God wanted me to do more, so I applied for the Deaconate program (sort of a junior priest). Unfortunately, I found out that the Church (at least in the Cleveland diocese at that time) did not accept applicants who had physical disabilities. I was quite surprised, because the Church does great public work for people with disabilities. But, I had run into a brick wall at this point, with God telling me that He wanted me to do more.

I took about a year to pray over this and consider my options. Finally I enrolled in King’s Word Seminary, which at that time was in Strongsville (they have since relocated). (
Note: 8/2007 Sutter has added this disclaimer (ie: lie): "they have since relocated and downgraded to a biblical study school) I began there in early 1989 to receive my Masters in Theology, and spent a couple of extra years working on my Doctorate in Divinity, Doctorate in Biblical Studies and History, and a Ph.D. in Trauma Psychology. Later, I completed additional training at other facilities to receive CEs and certifications in Crisis Intervention, Domestic Violence, Suicide Prevention, Hostage Negotiation, and Prison Ministry.

During this same time period, I continued with volunteer work, volunteering for the Free Clinic on their Crisis Intervention Hotline and Counseling program (that worked out well for my practicum); I volunteered as a prison minister in all Ohio prisons, county jails and local lockups; I volunteered for the local Christian Service Center, and helped found another non-profit crisis intervention agency known as the Free Crisis Clinic (now defunct).

I finally finished with seminary in December 1993 and received my ordination, state license and my first assignment, to Doers of the Word Baptist Fellowship Church in Strongsville Ohio. After serving two years there as Associate Pastor, I moved on to Jesus the Way Christian Fellowship Church in Lorain, Ohio in 1995 as Pastor and then Senior Pastor. Jesus the Way is a nondenominational Christian church, with pastors who are Independent Baptist, Southern Baptist and Pentecostal, and is located at 1822 East 28th Street. My church’s ministry programs include prison ministry, nursing home and hospital ministry, street ministry, aftercare ministry and an anti-hate ministry. These are the only churches in which I have ever been a pastor and with which I have ever been associated. In 2005 I went on semi-retirement status at Jesus the Way due to my worsening health, and late in 2006 I became Pastor Emeritus (fancy word for retired.) I still maintain my license and can marry, bury, and baptize people, and the church has been kind enough to allow me to remain in charge of their Internet Ministry Program
.”

But this contradicts what he said about himself September 30, 1995 on a bit.listserv.ada-law newsgroup

Sutter has specifically claimed he was a *new* kind of ordained Catholic minister, "higher than a Deacon, but slightly lower than a priest." A position that has never existed in the Catholic Church.

I am a minister by a new program of the Catholic Church. The Jesuits are running a relatively new program out of Modesto, CA, where they are coordinating training of ministers who would otherwise not qualify for service to their church. I would not normally qualify for further service to the Catholic Church, as I had already been commissioned a Eucharistic Minister, and the next step up would normally be to the Deaconnate. BUT, the Catholic church will not accept anyone into the Deacconate program who is disabled. (I know, we need to work on them, too). So the long and the short of it is that applicants go through five years of lay ministry to learn tenants and connonical law and biblical studies in whatever Christian religion they profess as their faith. The program is currently graduating Catholic Ministers, and Protestant and Episcopalian and Baptist Ministers.

As a Catholic minister, after I completed my five years of study, done through a combination of correspondence, online and attendance at St. Borromeo Seminary (here in Cleveland), while during the same five years working as a lay minister for the Catholic Church. After all that, then I was ordained, in Decembber, 1994. As a Catholic Minister, through a special dispensation of the Pope, I can be married and have a family. I am in a position higher than a Deacon, but slightly lower than a priest. I perform baptisms, celebrate mass, preside at First Communions, hear confessions, absolve sinners, bring communion, compassion and a sympathetic ear to the sick (they can't tell me anything I don't personally know about), say funeral masses, marriages, etc.”


He also repeated that fabrication here

I was ordained December 11, 1994 by the Catholic Life Church program out of Modesto, California. My Ohio license is number 4849, granted December 30, 1994. My supervisory Bishop is Bishop Kirby Hensley. I hold a Doctor of Divinity degree and a Doctorate in Biblical Studies.”

And once again here

I began as a lay minister in the Roman Catholic Church in December 1988. I continued lay ministry as Lector, Commentator and Eucharistic Minister while I studied for a relatively new Jesuit program headquartered in CA. I attended classes at Borromeo Seminary here in Cleveland, but the bulk of my studies were done at home, with reports, tests and thesis sent and graded by mail to the HQ in CA. I was finally ordained in a recently created position of Catholic Minister in December, 1994.

Kirby J. Hensley was the president and founder of the Universal Life Church (ULC). Modesto, California is the headquarters of the ULC. There is no "Catholic Life Church." [Note the similarity in names between Universal Life Church and "Catholic Life Church"; this is a pattern with Mr. Sutter.]

Sutter also made the claim that he was a Catholic minister again here (this is an old prodigy.com web page saved by the Internet Archive).

Hi. My name is Rev. Jim Sutter. I am an ordained Catholic minister, serving as chaplain at a local hospital, also as chaplain to a terminal care support group and a national advocacy organization.”

Mr. Sutter is now saying that these Usenet posts made in 1995 were not made by him, but are forgeries. This claim fails because the headers on these posts match the AOL headers from all of the numerous posts he made at that time (all are saved on Google Groups), and the fact that his "ADA NEWS FROM OHIO" Prodigy page also made the same claim. It would seem that someone who was posting in 1995 pretending to be Rev. Jim Sutter would have generated some sort of protest from the *real* Rev. Jim Sutter at the time.

Mr. Sutter might be under the delusion that someone can "forge" a Usenet post in 2007 and insert said post into the 1995 feed. Although Usenet forgeries are very common, I don't think anyone has figured out a method to send a forged post back into the past.

Here is the *real* truth about Mr. Sutter’s ordination……it never happened. Not from the imaginary "Catholic Life Church" or from the equally invented "King’s Word Seminary." He bought his ordination from the Universal Life Church. See what Sutter wrote about his troubles with the Catholic Church as a result of his Universal Life Church ordination.
I am Roman Catholic, and had continued to attend mass after ULC ordination, but now the Cleveland RC Diocese has sent me a written warning that if I continue as a ULC minister I will be excommunicated!
Note his signature:

RevJimS@aol.com
Rev. James M. Sutter, D.D. D.B.
Universal Life Church

Mr. Sutter has never had a ordination by a recognized religious organization after a course of study (which is confirmed by the senior pastor at the Baptist church Sutter was once associated with). What he does have is a license to solemnize marriages from the State of Ohio which his do-it-yourself "ordination" from Universal Life Church helped him get. Which he admitted to in this post
"when I applied for my Ohio license, I had to present my ordination certificate and degree from ULC, and it is upon those documents that the State of Ohio, operating under Ohio Revised Code, granted me a minister's license."

Update 8/2007: Sutter is now trying to make the claim that King's word Bible school was once a Seminary and down graded to a Bible school. Unfortunately that is another lie, a pathetic attempt from the phony "Rev." to save face.

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7 comments:

Hesperado said...

While the writer of this blog here on exposing the good "Reverend" has a few typos here and there (which I would advise going back to correct, as it gives an appearance of hastiness or sloppiness), Sutter himself cannot be so easily let off the hook when he writes (as quoted above):

"So the long and the short of it is that applicants go through five years of lay ministry to learn tenants and connonical law and biblical studies in whatever Christian religion they profess as their faith."

Ministry schools do not teach "tenants" -- nor even do they teach "landlords". They teach tenets. Even worse, his bizarre spelling of canonical ("connonical") is laughable for a person with his supposed pedigree of theological education.

Lady Predator said...

Thanks for your comments. I had someone other than myself go over the page and help me with the editing. If you have any suggested please let me know. I often don’t see my own mistakes so I will take all the help and suggestions I can get.
And your observations about what Sutter wrote are spot on, not to mention hilarious!!

Hesperado said...

Hi, the typos I was noticing are really very minor (things like not capitalizing the "watch" part of "Jihad Watch", or one time you used brackets [] then following that you used parentheses () pretty much for the same purpose). I noticed you have corrected "bully's" to the proper "bullies". Sutter's pdf document about Spencer has blatant typos and misspellings, as well as a childish use of CAPS that convey a kind of immature shrill yellow journalism tone. In that pdf document, he combines these two by twice misspelling "hypocrisy" as, in all caps, "HYPOCRICY".

Lady Predator said...

LOL hilarious. And he made a remark about *me* needing a spell checker.

Anonymous said...

A sad story that is funny in a sick way....

Don't worry about typos too much.

A certain Rev'd. could use a 'lie checker' as well as a spell checker.

Anonymous said...

I ran into Sutter someplace, I don't remember where. We had a SHORT email correspondence. Then I started to get suspicious because of some of his claims. If I recall correctly, he claimed to have a PhD in physics. He could blather about it a little, but I wasn't convinced. His claim to be a minister who had a degree in psychology also sounded suspicious. He claimed to be fluent in German, Spanish, Japanese, Russian, Hebrew, and Arabic. That's quite a disparate list. I also looked up the address of his 50,000 member church, and it turned out to be an old prison which was for sale. A Catholic church down the street said there was no 50,000 member church in the area. I was tempted to write to him in Russian, Spanish, and German, which I know, but by that time I was no longer interested in having anything to do with him. He also self-published about himself on Wikipedia, which is strictly forbidden.

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