The Michael Rood Brand Of Ministry

n a mailing to his supporters in July 2008, Messianic Jewish apostate Michael Rood recently noted a significant milestone in his ministry. Writing in his newsletter entitled Prepare For A Rood Awakening, the colorful figure noted the one-year anniversary of the nasty break with his own ministry leadership - a conflict which resulted in the complete restructuring of Rood's fund raising organization.

In the process, the modern Pharisee has come to the point where spouting so much false doctrine without massive opposition has apparently emboldened the former Prophecy Club speaker to believe he can brazenly lie without being called to task for it. After receiving this latest letter, I can no longer remain silent.

As Rood's ministry organization was based in my home state of Oregon, and I had accepted an assignment to produce the Rood newsletter on a contract basis, I was an eyewitness to much of what occurred. Many are familiar with the monthly mailings "sent" by the Rood organization; these were actually produced, printed, and mailed by my organization (I had the complete mailing list).

When Michael Rood subsequently broke with (and inaugurated legal proceedings against) the administrator of the ministry, one Jamie Louis, I unsuccessfully offered to mediate the conflict.

Another Messianic Jewish believer in Yahshua, Jamie Louis had run the ministry on behalf of Rood for some time, and predictably, the fight began over money - and lots of it. Although I've had some concerns with Rood's theology from the very beginning, Mr. Louis recognized my capabilities in ministry data management, and asked if I could revamp Michael Rood's regular mailings. I enthusiastically accepted.

I recognized this was the LORD's way of giving us an opportunity to introduce many people to the prophetic perspective held by Christian Media. As I've long believed that God has given us significant revelation related to prophecy, I was delighted to have the opportunity to send complimentary copies of our publications to a group of believers that might otherwise never read our material.

I had already printed multiple editions of the Rood monthly newsletter when Michael and Jamie came into conflict, and Rood subsequently brought in another ministry figure, a man named Don Harris, to attempt to regain control of the official ministry known as A Rood Awakening, during an ensuing power struggle. 

In the acrimonious fight, Rood charged the ministry organization was attempting to dictate orders to him, whereas the ministry administrator Jamie Louis claimed Rood was ignoring accountability structures that Rood himself had previously approved, including a board of directors. Rood accused Louis of using ministry funds for his own purposes, whereas Louis claimed Rood thought he could draw out whatever amount of money he saw fit, regardless of the ministry's financial obligations.

Jamie Louis claimed the Rood ministry owed several creditors significant amounts, and it was inappropriate for Rood to draw additional funds in excess of the agreed upon stipend until the creditors were paid.

Both sides made numerous and inflammatory accusations (mostly on the Internet). As believers are not supposed to behave in such a fashion in accordance with New Testament admonitions, I found the entire mess quite embarrassing.

In the days following the split, an accountability group was formed to investigate all the charges and counter-charges, and make a decision, outside the civil courts, according to Scripture. Michael Rood agreed to this, but later withdrew his cooperation when the independent group found discrepancies in Rood's statements, emails, and other anecdotal data. Civil legal proceedings were initiated, and after some legal mediation, the matter was apparently settled.

Although the accountability group of leaders found some degree of inefficiency and lack of judgment in Jamie Louis' records (mostly concerning the continual enabling of Rood's lack of financial accountability), they found major discrepancies, inconsistencies, and outright fabrications in Michael Rood's version of events. A detailed and systematic report was published, and Mr. Rood is not portrayed in a favorable fashion.

During the fracas, hoping to avoid being drawn into taking sides, in the midst of the chaos, I realized I was probably the only person who actually had a clear understanding of the Rood ministry database in terms of numbers, regular supporters, how current the addresses were, and so forth. Through the squabble, I tried to maintain cordial relations with both sides.

When Don Harris assumed the helm of a hastily restructured Rood organizational structure (which included a move to Michigan from Oregon), one of his first acts was to contact me to discuss the status of the ministry database. Don wanted a copy of the database, and as he was represented as the new General Manager of Michael Rood's ministry, I complied.

In the apparent hope of some degree of continuity, I was then asked to publish a ministry mailing to Michael's supporters on behalf of the new ministry structure in Michigan. This occurred in August 2007. Because my own direct mail activities are constantly updating the various databases in my possession, when I was also asked by Don (who I had found to be an honourable man I was already acquainted with) to produce another mailing for the fledgling Rood organization, I did my best to effectively utilize the most recent data relative to all Rood ministry supporters.

Further, I personally supervised the printing, envelope stuffing, sealing, sorting, labeling, etc for the first Rood newsletter after the restructuring, in a critical effort to ask his supporters to continue to help him through the difficult period. Once again, this was in August 2007. I was also involved in direct mail for Michael's speaking tours, as well as a November 2007 printing and direct mail program.

It should be noted that lists are updated daily here, and even though we mailed a sample of our materials to names on the Rood list, we never provided Rood's mailing list with names of friends of Christian Media. Because good mailing list management requires methodical maintenance (people move, the post office sends back undeliverable letters, etc), not knowing if we would produce another newsletter for the new organization, we continued to maintain the Rood list.

Shortly after the November newsletter project was completed, a Rood staffer named Rashel Kammerling contacted me. She had been assigned to interact with me on the newsletter and database projects, and realizing the Rood list I used for the November mailing was more up to date than the one given to Don Harris in August, she asked for a copy of the database. I sent it to her at the Rood Michigan offices shortly thereafter.

Over the course of the next year, as I began to study various aspects of the Messianic Jewish movement in earnest, I was horrified to learn just how apostate Michael Rood's doctrine actually is. Like many Christians, I had always thought Messianic Jews were pretty much like other Christians (some are), except they come from Jewish families, and have an intense desire to see their brethren converted to the Gospel.

I've since learned that significant portions of what is called the "Hebrew Roots" movement have been transformed into an integral component of the Antichrist deception of our time. Those familiar with our work at the Christian Media ministry are aware that we in the last year, we have emphatically opposed certain doctrines found in Messianic Judaism, and its corollaries, the Two House Heresy and the so-called Christian Identity/British-Israel fraud (for more on the nuts and bolts of these, see the links below for the books The Two House Twist, and Recognizing Christian Identity).

Late last year, I was aghast to learn that Michael Rood has heartily endorsed the Shem Tov manuscript. This is an apostate version of the book of Matthew, written by a Christ rejecting Jew named Shem Tov Ben Chaprut, a Spaniard from the Middle Ages whose work has substituted all sorts of apostasies for the true Gospel found in the Greek manuscripts of the book of Matthew.

I learned that some Messianic factions, seeking to spin the Gospel with a more favorable slant toward Judaism, have utilized the Shem Tov manuscript, because it was allegedly composed in Aramaic. The writing purports to be the original Gospel of Matthew, but this literary fraud has been soundly rejected by scholars for centuries because of obvious internal evidence pointing to its non-Matthean authorship. By rejecting the true Word of God in favor of this obvious counterfeit, Michael Rood has shown himself to be a manipulative pretender who is clearly willing to sacrifice God's Word to further his own so-called prophetic agenda.

Incidentally, that the Shem Tov manuscript is counterfeit is hardly a radical assertion as there are huge changes in the work that betray its Satanic origin. This so called Aramaic version of Matthew, pushed by Messianic Jews like Michael Rood who wish to return to a Pharisaical administration of the Gospel, makes changes that are so brazen it's difficult to see how anyone could be taken in by the scam.

The Shem Tov manuscript also has internal textual evidence linking it to another Jewish writing called the Toledoth Yeshu - and the latter is one of the ancient writings that directly blasphemes Christ extensively. Shem Tov consistently diminishes Christ's deity, and the Toledoth Yeshu tells us Jesus was actually sired by a Roman centurion, and was hung on the gallows as a sorcerer!

This perspective seeps into the Shem Tov manuscript, yet astonishingly, Michael Rood claims this trash should be utilized instead of the Biblical book of Matthew. The Shem Tov manuscript, the Toledoth Yeshu, the Aramaic Peshitta, and other aberrant manuscripts are more thoroughly examined in my book Satanic Translations: New Age and Sacred Name Bibles.

In the fall of 2007, when Michael Rood reconfigured his Rood Awakening ministry, and filed a lawsuit against Jamie Louis claiming malfeasance as the administrator of the Rood organization, I completed the previously mentioned printing assignments for the new Rood organization and then severed my professional association with the ministry. Ultimately, as is commonly the case, Michael's suit against Jamie Louis was settled out of court with a "gag order." Thus, I'm not in a position to know the minute details of who did what to whom.

Over the last year, we've restricted our comments concerning Rood to observations concerning his Antichrist spin on the Gospel. Rood's clearly unscriptural theories about the timing of Christ's ministry (he rejects the 3 years found in the Gospels claiming the LORD only ministered for about 16 months), his embrace of a reliance upon Rabbinical custom (read legalism), and his blasphemous rejection of plain New Testament doctrine whenever it suits his program demonstrate he is completely heretical.

However, his July 2008 statements, in writing, are so completely inaccurate they demand a refutation. In an insert in his newsletter, Rood characterizes the break with his former friends as an attempt to "Stop Rood" - as though the break with his former associates was a sinister effort to stop his ministry activities.

The truth is, the former head of Rood's ministry had dedicated all that he had to the ministry of Michael Rood. For example, a family member of Jamie Louis provided offices to the Oregon ministry under very favorable conditions. Even Louis' children were energetically involved in the ministry work.

Tragically, a few short months before the ministry clash, Jamie Louis' immediate family was en route to a Rood event when a horrible car crash took the life of his daughter and his wife's father, crippled another family member, and changed all of their lives forever. Through it all, the grieving survivors remained in the service of Mr. Rood. Indeed, in multiple meetings with Mr. Louis, I found him to be sincere and genuinely dedicated to Michael Rood's message.

Because Mr. Louis wanted to put the unfortunate clash with Michael Rood behind him, clearly some difficult choices were made - and a non-disclosure agreement of what really happened would be very unpalatable to Jamie Louis in view of the character damaging charges that had been leveled against him. However, to see the break classified as a plot by "two ministry insiders who�carefully planned this takeover" is simply untrue.

In this same July 2008 letter to his mailing list, Michael Rood clearly seeks to manipulate his clientele into financial support by claiming he had been "cut off" from contact with those supporters due to this supposed "twisted" plan to "Stop Rood." Claiming he has had no way to contact his supporters through the last year, he writes

"From that heartbreaking day last July until now, I have been unable to contact you or any of my other friends who have stood with me through the years..."

Rood just pours on the hyperbole as he claims his "vociferous critics" tried to keep him from speaking the truth by holding on to the computer records (read his mailing list) so he could not continue any fund raising activities to do the Lord's work:

"I was completely shut out with no access to even my own family's addresses and phone numbers...I was completely cut off from you with little hope of reconnecting..."

Incredibly, in this two page appeal, Rood claims a third time he was cut off from access to the records of his supporters:

"Please do not take it personally that I have not kept in contact with you this past year. You were cruelly cut off from me and I was powerless to change the circumstances in which I found myself." (It Was Only A Flesh Wound, M Rood, July 2008 direct mail insert)

The actual facts are decidedly different.

Not only did I provide a database copy of Mr. Rood's entire mailing list to Rood's new General Manager Don Harris in the Fall of 2007, as I previously noted, I provided an updated version of the database/mailing list to the new Rood organization two months later. Further, I published another newsletter on behalf of Rood's reconfigured ministry in November 2007 - four months after Rood claims to have had "no access" to any of his supporters.

Once again, the claim of no access to his mailing list is patently false. Furthermore, the database records which I forwarded to the "new" Rood ministry included data indicating which supporters had sent funds to Mr. Rood. Indeed, in the first Rood mailing project I produced after the split in the ministry, I was specifically instructed to bulk mail that newsletter/fund raising appeal to every name that had ever given Rood any money.

In short, in addition to his willingness to dispense with the Scriptures when it suits his agenda, Michael Rood is also apparently willing to dispose of the basic facts when they inconveniently fail to dovetail with his marketing practices.

My New Testament (the one written in Greek that ends with the book of Revelation) tells me the about New Jerusalem, and the kingdom of God, and it says

"For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie." (Revelation 22:15)  Since Michael Rood claims to be leading people to the true kingdom of God, this would seem to be a verse with which he would have some familiarity. One can only wonder how Michael's Rude Behaviour, which now includes complete fabrications of fact in order to raise money, can place him anywhere else except outside of the kingdom of God.

-- James Lloyd

See Also

The Two House Twist

Recognizing Christian Identity

Satanic Translations: New Age & Sacred Name Bibles