- [Editor’s Note: This is part 1 in a series that will explain how James Riady, a corrupt and felonious Globalist financier, is influencing America’s Reformed community. Part 1 will give a brief overview of Riady’s past, continued corruption and problematic leftist ties, and explain Riady’s influence over American Reformed leaders and American religious institutions]
INTRODUCTION
I, like many of you, have seen a hard-left turn in American evangelicalism. As a Reformed believer within American evangelicalism, I have seen that Calvinists have not been immune to this turn. In fact, it seems as though the Reformed community (or a pseudo-Reformed subset known as “New Calvinism”) has been leading the way in Marxist thought, Globalism, and Social Justice. This has left me asking the question as to whether or not the left-turn among America’s Reformed community has been a natural product of shifting economic theory and political ideology or if something more sinister is at play. Is it possible that the Marxist-Globalist alliance has been intentionally buying its way into Reformed American evangelicalism, and purchasing theological stock in the growing movement? Is it possible that, like many others, the powers-that-be have seen the massive tidal wave of the Reformed Resurgence and determined it’s a suitable vehicle to advance their agenda? Is it possible that well-meaning Reformed leaders have been “useful idiots” for Global powers far greater than they could imagine?
If you’re paying attention, you’ve seen that the Gospel Coalition is not a religious organization, but a political one. The organization is heavily influenced by economic and cultural Marxists like its founder, Tim Keller. Along with its sister organization, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (which is not officially wed, but shares writers, content-producers, and board members) of the Southern Baptist Convention, The Gospel Coalition’s greatest influence has been in convincing the mainstream of Reformed evangelicals that “Social Justice” is somehow a Gospel issue.
When I discovered that George Soros, the billionaire Globalist financier, had been financing the Evangelical Immigration Table – on which serves the ERLC’s Russell Moore (who has also promoted Soros material from the SBC’s social media platforms), I began to wonder if other Globalist billionaires were similarly influencing America’s Reformed evangelicals. What I found was eye-opening.
While it sounds conspiratorial, history has demonstrated that Communists were heavily involved in influencing Liberation Theology in the Americas and successfully infiltrated American churches in the 1950s and 1960s. It has happened before. Could it be happening again?
Go along with me on this ride, and presume that we’re all wearing tin-foil hats for sheer fashion…until you see the evidence yourself.
JAMES RIADY, THE EVANGELICAL FELON
James Riady’s networth is nearly three billion dollars and his family is among the top ten wealthiest Indonesians (source link). In a series of posts, Pulpit & Pen seeks to examine the influence of Riady – a globalist and Marxist – and his money among America’s evangelicals, and primarily among Reformed evangelicals. Is it possible that the Social Justice, economic and Cultural Marxism, and open borders globalism of The Gospel Coalition, the ERLC and other New Calvinist organizations is significantly influenced by the long-time Bill and Hillary Clinton ally?
James Riady was sent to the United States by his wealthy father in 1977 to set up a banking presence in the United States (source link). His father, Mochtar, was also interested in helping Bert Lance – Jimmy Carter’s one-time budget director – sell some problematic bank stock in the National Bank of Georgia (source link). By 1983, James had set up his father’s Lippo Finance & Investment Inc., a name which would help create a major political scandal for Bill Clinton. The Riadys had set up Stephens Finance LTD with Jackson Stephens of Arkansas. The two (Stephens and Lippo Finance and Investment Inc., with James Riady as bank director) purchased shares in Worthen Banking Corporation (source link). In 1985, Worthen was investigated by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for giving more than a million-dollars-worth of illegal loans to companies owned by the Riadys and the Stephens’, as well as to Liem Sioe Liong, another Indonesian billionaire (source link).
It’s during this period of time that Riady became close with then-governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton. Now, let’s fast-forward.
When Bill Clinton ran for president in 1992, one of his closest financial contributors was James Riady, flush with cash both from Indonesia and from banking activities in the United States that would later be prosecuted (successfully) as a criminal. Riady would go on to visit the White House more than 20 times, met privately with Clinton in the Oval Office at least three times, and is on the record urging Clinton to open more trade with China (source link). His concern was economic, and wanted to continue giving Most Favored Nation (MFN) status to a country responsible for persecuting Christians and denying its Citizens basic human rights. Riady’s chief banking executive went to work for Clinton, raising illicit amounts of cash from dubious foreign sources. In a few short years, the Riady family and the Lippo group had given $475 thousand dollars to Clinton, and raised hundreds of thousands from international sources in South Korea and a Buddhist temple in California (source link). This eventually led to the “Clinton Fundraising Scandal,” after-which Riady was fined 8.6 million dollars in 2001 and earned him the title of some as “The Evangelical Felon” (source link). Riady pled guilty to conspiracy and was banned from the United States for two years, and included admission of a felony and 86 misdemeanors by Riady’s Lippo group (source link). Famed New York Times journalist, William Safire, claimed that Riady was tied to Chinese Intelligence, a claim that has now been well substantiated (source link). Even after Riady became a Christian in 1990, he has continued to act feloniously, court the political clout from the Clinton camp, and is still regularly donating tons of cash to two sources, Globalist causes in one way or another associated with Bill and Hillary Clinton and to primarily Reformed Christian causes, as we will demonstrate.
Although banned from the country, Riady came twice to the United States in 2009 when Hillary Clinton gave Riady a visa waiver through the Obama State Department. It’s worth noting that the State Department under President George W. Bush denied Riady entry (source link). Wikileaks revealed that Riady had given cash to the Clinton Foundation and financed the “Asia Climate group” in 2011 (source link). It’s highly suspected that Riady purchased the Lippo group’s government-instituted monopoly of the mineral market, which in turn would benefit Red China, and so much so, that President Donald Trump has ordered Ryan Zinke – Secretary of the Interior – to examine whether or not Bill Clinton’s National Monument declarations (which stopped mineral production in important formations in Utah) were in fact influenced by money from Riady and the Lippo group (source link). It is highly suspected that Lippo China Resources – run by James Riady’s brother, Stephen – made the move to purchase the debt of the CS Mining company, which would give it practical ownership – in anticipation of Hillary Clinton’s then-imminent presidency, believing that Clinton would allow the company the exclusive rights to mine the federal land (source link), even though it would plunder American minerals to the benefit of no one but China and the Riadys would pose a significant national security risk to the United States (source link). In fact, the infamous “Podesta email leak” reveals that Riady paid the Clintons 20 thousand dollars to become a member of the Clinton Global Initiative in 2016 (source link), demonstrating that Riady continues to fund Globalism and the Clintons until this very day.
JAMES RIADY, THE REFORMED EVANGELICAL SUGAR DADDY
Riady senior reportedly came to faith in Christ in 1986 after attending a retreat hosted by Indonesian megachurch pastor and head of the Reformed Evangelical Church in Indonesia (source link), Stephen Tong. Tong pastors the Messiah Cathedral, and has an endowment at Westminster Theological Seminary (Pennsylvania) creating the “Stephen Tong Chair of Reformed Theology” at the institution in 2011 (source link). Tong was also given an honorary degree by Westminster (source link) in 2008. In spite of their conversions, neither James Riady nor his father have joined Tong’s church, but Tong pronounced the elder Riady a “sincere Christian” because he confessed himself a sinner (source link). They do, however, help collect the offering and help manage the finances (source link).
James Riady is the financial benefactor and co-founder of the Pelita Harapan Foundation (source link), a Reformed school on whose board sits Riady’s wife, Aileen and whose director is James’ youngest daughter, Minny (source link), and currently has more than 16 thousand students. It is through this organization that some of the biggest names in Reformed American evangelicalism are regularly flown to break bread with the Riadys and be wined-and-dined by their Indonesian benefactors, who have contributed large dollars to their institutions. In fact, The Gospel Coalition has encouraged their readership to yoke themselves with the Riady’s institution (source link).
While donating millions of dollars to the Clintons and millions more to Globalist causes, the Riadys have also donated heavily to various religious institutions in America, including Reformed Theological Seminary (RTS) in Jackson, Mississippi and maintains partnerships with those institutions (source link). The RTS newsletter is replete with documentation of the relationship between the Riadys and that institution (source link).
While the precise number of dollars donated to religious institutions in America from the Riady family is unknown, a good example of how they have purchased their influence can be found in Ouachita Baptist University, a school belonging to the Arkansas Baptist State Convention. The university’s president in 2010, Rex Horne (former pastor of President Bill Clinton), eagerly recieved Riady for a visit to discuss receiving funds from his Indonesian foundation (source link). Ouachita Baptist University then gave Riady an unannounced honorary degree in 2004, and refused to tell the press how much money Riady had donated to their scholarship fund (source link). While RTS, Westminster, and Ouachita Baptist have all chosen not to disclose the amount of funds received from Riady, the University of Melbourne was paid by Raidy about 1.5 million to name a chair in his honor (source link), which might indicate a “going rate.”
Riady has also donated to and received degrees from other conservative evangelical churches, which typically have the opposite political worldview of the Globalist Riady family. This will be further explained in additional reporting.
In spite of the Riady family’s committment to Globalism, in spite of the millions of dollars in support for Bill Clinton’s campaign and then Bill and Hillary Clinton’s foundation, in spite of his dishonorable treatment of the American political system and his felonious economic behavior, and in spite of his continued attempts to coup American resources through corrupt political and economic dealings, America’s Reformed leaders still regularly flock to Riady in support.
Duncan and RTS are not the only ones. There are many, many more. How much money has been given to Reformed leaders, and exactly how much influence is the corrupt Globalist financier buying in the American Reformed community?
More to come.
[Contributed by JD Hall, with fear and trembling]
