Hunter Frederick, the guy who helps fallen ministers ignore church discipline, remain unqualified, but continue to make money on the evangelical celebrity circuit.
Perry Noble, whose church had to reiterate that he was not qualified for ministry when he refused to leave the pulpit (preaching at other churches) in June, has hired a “Christian” public relations professional who helps disgraced mega-ministers rebuild their reputations after moral failure.
Yes, you may not have known it, but helping morally disqualified ministers remain in the pulpit is an actual profession. Noble’s PR guy is named Hunter Frederick and advertises himself as a “public relations and crisis manager.” He bills himself as a well-meaning “servant” of Jesus. In fact, he’s a sleazy opportunist who seeks to help fallen ministers be restored – not by churches who have gauged their repentance – but in the public eye, so they can continue to make money and stay on the job even though they’ve been biblically disciplined.
Frederick contacted Pulpit & Pen today, identified himself as Noble’s “publicist,” and told us to change our critical articles about the charlatan. Because Frederick has provided his PR services to fallen ministers like Tullian Tchividjian (who had multiple extramarital affairs) and Michael Gungor (who angered his followers by denying the inerrancy of Scripture), his reputation preceded him.
He said, “Not quite.” But, pretty close, apparently…
He then got to his point…
The article he refers to is this one. He claims Perry Noble doesn’t recall certain quotations ascribed to him (which makes sense, because he was likely drunk when he said them). Before we give the rest of our interaction, a few things about Hunter Frederick.
Berean Examiner, a polemicist blog has done research into this spiritual crisis profiteer already. It explains in its post, “Crisis Managed?,” that Frederick needs “to know they are repentant before [he] will work with them.” Berean Examiner writes, “I called Frederick yesterday to ask him about his newest client, Tullian Tchividjian. After losing his ministry job last week, the former pastor contacted the agency, and on Monday, Frederick took him under counsel.”
According to the Berean Examiner, Frederick is the one who calls discernment folks and polemicists on behalf of the ministry and asks them to retract or go soft (our paraphrase) on criticizing them. After all, he says they’re repentant. Berean Examinerlinked a post at the Christian Newswire, which further explains Frederick’s job…
With the constant news headlines of pastors and other Christian leaders falling away due to sexual immorality, misuse of church funds, denying certain Christian orthodoxy as well as others, the man that these Christian leaders turn to during a time of crisis believes he knows why our Christian leaders are failing…Hunter Frederick, the owner of the entertainment and faith-based crisis management and public relations firm Frederick & Associates believes that a reason why we are seeing more and more Christian leaders fall is because of the celebrity status we give our christian leaders.
The article then explains what Frederick really thinks the problem is…those pesky discernment bloggers.
Frederick also believes that the ongoing scrutiny from “ultra-conservative” christian media outlets contribute to the celebrity status of those christian leaders that they believe are preaching a false gospel.
“While we need to communicate certain concern over false teachings, we need to be careful of the means in which we communicate these concerns. A lot of these ‘watchman ministries’ believe it’s their goal to ‘call out’ these leaders while at the same time evaluating their celebrity status and enable them to use said media attention to their advantage.”
How dare we. Of course, if people were listening to us, they wouldn’t have been listening to hucksters like Perry Noble and the rest of Frederick’s clientele, to begin with. We responded with the following…
If you recall, Tony Nolan – the popular evangelist – had entered into a partnership with Clayton Jennings to help rebuild his ministry and restore him after multiple women came out to testify that he preyed upon them spiritually and sexually, and some had even been pressured with alcohol and to take the abortion pill. Nolan later explained that Jennings ended the restoration process because he had a team of “PR people” who would restore his ministry without making him take a time-out. Whether or not that was Hunter Frederick, we do not know, but we do know that there will be a hot place of judgment for those with the vocational profession of circumventing Biblical church discipline for the sake of financial gain.
There are so many celebrity preachers falling into unrepentant sin that an entire industry of fake restoration has developed to help them rebuild their reputations. If you have any information about Hunter Frederick and know any of his other clients, please contact us at [email protected].
