Pulpit & Pen has written about Jeff Dornik twice before, who was one of the newest members of the Worldview Weekend roster after Justin Peters, Mike Abendroth, Jesse Johnson, and Susan Heck left the podcast network last year. Dornik began to do the proverbial dirty work of Brannon Howse, attacking Phil Johnson and anyone associated with him. For Howse, the issue was clear; anyone not willing to anathematize (implicitly or explicitly) James White for his ill-advised and poorly-done Interfaith Dialogue was to be seen as an enemy and that included Johnson, who was on the record disagreeing with the dialogue but was unwilling to engage in a scorched-earth policy against White.
[Editor’s Note: For the sake of record, Pulpit & Pen also thought that White was naive, if not foolish, in his Interfaith Dialogue, but publicly stated that “writing off” White’s ministry or impugning him with poor or sinister motives was over-the-line]
We wrote on our original post, Jeff the Gatekeeper, On Maybe Keeping it Shut:
[Jeff Dornik] seems to have made it his mission to single-handedly tweet-storm Phil Johnson to death. It may be that he resembles what I imagine the Lance Bass of discernment would look like. It could be the newness of him. It could be because Howse pulled Dornik out of his sleeve like a cheating gambler pulls out an Ace of Spades, right when he decided to flush two of his best podcasters down the Worldview Weekend toilet (if ever there was an appropriate metaphor, that is it) for not aggressively defending him well enough. Perhaps it’s because Dornik hit the ground running on Howse’s network with all the enthusiasm a lap dog has for its master, I don’t know. But, watching Dornik relentlessly attack Phil Johnson with a steady flock of two or three angry, heckling women has me moderately annoyed.
We also wrote in that post:
The thing is, we very clearly do not agree with the concept of a game of two-hand hug played between a Pastor and Imam instead of debating or disputing. What we also don’t like is the endless molotov-throwing at anyone Brannon Howse tells you to twitter bomb. There are vultures and other carions who eat the dead. And then there are parasites that live in the stomachs of carions. Then there are viruses that live in the body of those parasites. That is Jeff Dornik, refusing to let go of the righteous white knight twitter jousting for the honor of survivor blog gals type thing he’s been doing for four or five months now. Let it go, son. Seriously.
Since White’s Interfaith Dialogue, we’ve been even more concerned with White’s gross betrayals of Confessional standards by his stubborn insistence in endorsing and promoting (those words are used in their proper, definitional meaning) of one of Charismaticism’s chief apologists, Knock-Em-Down Michael Brown and in particular, White’s claim that a Continuationist like Brown still holds to the Sufficiency of Scripture. In spite of the clear errors portrayed by James White and Alpha and Omega Ministries over the course of the last year, we always have, still do, and always will reject the “friends of my enemies are my enemies” schismaticism that was portrayed by Howse’s treatment of Peters, Abendroth, and Johnson.
We then wrote about Jeff Dornik in the post, Jeff the Gatekeeper Caught in a Fib. In that post we exposed an untruth espoused by Dornik, when he claimed to have been a donor to Grace to You, when in fact, records show that he was not.
Dornik has continued in what is now a year-long infatuation with Johnson, with what seems to be the full support and accolades of his ministry partner, Brannon Howse. As we have repeatedly demonstrated, Dornik’s credentials to host a podcast on the Worldview Weekend network are indeed dubious. His theological training is nebulous, his current contribution to the church is unknown, and his background is hazy.
Claiming to have worked at one time for the “CIA,” Dornik wrote a post explaining his tenure there on April 3 of this year. By “CIA,” Dornik refers to playing in a band called “Radioactive Chicken Heads” and being involved with an organization known as the “California Institute of Abnormalarts (CIA).”
Dornik writes:
What is the CIA, you ask? It’s a venue in North Hollywood with a Circus & Freak Show theme. It’s a place where performers that might not find another venues to perform at would come and put on their performances for the NoHo audience. This would range from magicians to standup comedians to bands to independent movie premiers to Freak Shows to any other type of performance you can think of.
It is owned and operated by Carl Crew, an actor most famous for playing Jeffrey Dahmer in the movie The Secret Life of Jeffrey Dahmer, of which he also wrote. Yes, Carl is a “little” eccentric. But he’s also a famous fixture of North Hollywood… because of the CIA, he’s known as the Barnum of Burbank Blvd. Why, you might ask? Because he’s seen as the modern day PT Barnum, giving a platform for performers that you would rarely see elsewhere.
The so-called “CIA” is home to a freak-show of manufactured, fake, and occultic “artifacts” collected by Carl Crew, who wrote and starred in a film about Jeffery Dahmer. His artifacts include a two-headed dead baby, a supposed mermaid, a dismembered hand turned into abominable art, and the corpse of a dead clown. The articles are necromantic, devilish, and occultic.
But according to Jeff Dornik, Carl Crew and his Hollywood House of Horrors is doing the work of Jesus. Crew, you see, claims to be a Christian and Dornik is vouching for his credentials. Dornik writes:
Carl is always ready to share his testimony with anyone he comes in contact with. If you were to show up for one of his Freak Shows that regularly occur at the club, he’s the guy you get your tickets from. He’ll more than likely speak in a unique accent with each person, and always gets a laugh out of everyone. But the fascinating thing for him is that, while many Christians would never step foot in this scene, Carl thrives in building an instant relationship with someone and be able to share the Gospel with a very anti-God, anti-Christian clientele. And because these people can clearly see that he believes every word of what he’s saying, they listen to what he has to say. Sometimes they are hostile, a lot of the time they are receptive.
Just so you can get a taste of the occultic weirdness of Crew, which Jeff the Gatekeeper thinks is a good thing, watch the video below:
And here’s another video:
And yet, Jeff Dornik thinks that this man should be fully commended:
See, Carl embodies this aspect of Jesus’ ministry more than anyone I know. The Bible says to “always (be) prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect.” (1 Peter 3:15) When I was working at the club, I would literally see Carl witnessing to multiple people every single night. If someone shared that they were going through something, he’d put his hand on them and pray for them right then and there. It didn’t matter what was going on. He could’ve been standing next to the dead clown or yelling over the top of a heavy metal screamo band. It didn’t matter. Nothing was more important than that person, that conversation, and the need to pray for that person.
Say what you want about the types of shows he has at his venue, but by attracting the kind of clientele that come to his club, he is able to reach an entire group of people that the church simply doesn’t have access to. What does that say about us as believers? In Luke 5:32 Jesus said, “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” So who did Jesus spend time with? The righteous goody two shoes who were clean cut and fit in with the religious elite? No! He spent time with the sinners, those in need of a Savior.
We, of course, would argue that there’s absolutely no discernible difference between what Dornik claims this Hollywood necromantic freak-show Master of Ceremonies is trying to accomplish and what the now-infamous Christalignment group from Bethel (Redding) was trying to accomplish with their equally-occultic gimmickry and Christian tarot cards.
Dornik, however, reveals that not only does he approve of this dark arts side-show of humanity, but he worked for the organization and is proud of it.
I’m not ashamed for working at the California Institute of Abnormalarts. I’m not ashamed for working with Carl Crew. I’m proud of my work history. Why? I worked alongside a man who loves the Lord and literally depends on Him constantly. I would show up at the club at 6pm to setup and then spend time with Carl and his business partner Bob praying for those who would show up for the show that night. Then, after everyone left, we’d sit and talk about some of the conversations that we had with people that night, and then pray that God would work in their lives.
Dornik went on in his post and compared those who may take issue with the satanic practices and artifacts to “Pharisees.”
Let me make this personal statement and give my own subjective impression:
In a decade of discernment work, I have never – and I mean never – seen anyone who fancied themselves a polemicist who has more woefully, publicly, and embarrassingly demonstrated their lack of common sense (let alone spiritual discernment) than Jeff Dornik in his April 3 blog post. This Worldview Weekend contributor explicitly and proudly promoted necromancy, devilishness, and the occult in the name of evangelism.
[Editor’s Note: Contributed by JD Hall]
