Rick Power and Will Campbell: Following Doctrines of Demons

These two ordained elders in the Church of the Nazarene (one is a District Superintendent) are a perfect example of what Timothy warned about. Since they both promote and approve of same sex marriage and the normalization of homosexuality, they fit the description of “some will depart from the faith”. This has to be the logical and rational conclusion from a biblical view. Any pastor in the Church of the Nazarene or any other denomination who approves of and promotes same sex marriage, is by definition heeding deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons.

Last month, I posted two articles. One article exposed the heretical ideas of Rick Power, District Superintendent of the Hawaii District. Power openly promotes same sex marriage and believes homosexuality is not a sin. The other article brings to light his son-in-law, Will Campbell, also an ordained elder. In January of 2019, Campbell officiated at a same sex wedding between his brother and another man. Campbell’s wife also was listed as the “official” officiant, although Campbell is still listed as the officiant at a wedding website for the two men. Will Campbell still is an ordained elder after five years and has not suffered any consequences for his heretical actions.

They Hid The Incriminating Evidence, And Blocked My Video

After I posted my article about Will Campbell and provided a link to his brother’s wedding video, they made the video private. I then posted the video on my YouTube channel, and it was blocked at their request. Then I posted a short one minute summary of Will Campbell’s involvement in the wedding, and that was then blocked as well, again at the request of Will’s brother and the man he married.

And so, a previously public same sex wedding video, proudly displayed for the world to see, has now been hidden, which conveniently keeps many Nazarenes from seeing part of the evidence of Will Campbell’s involvement with a same sex marriage. For purposes of critiquing the blatant violation of Scripture by an ordained elder in the Nazarene church, I have uploaded a one minute summary on Vimeo of Will Campbell and his participation in a same sex wedding, which is an abomination in the eyes of God. You can see that summary here, and I am also including screenshots from the wedding at the end, documenting Campbell’s involvement.

What do the General Superintendents Know, And When Did They Know It?

All of the six General Superintendents are aware of this scandal now. Rick Power himself has confirmed that since 2019, he has shared his unbiblical views about same sex marriage and homosexuality to every General Superintendent. Recently elected GS Sarmiento was informed by Power, so he knows. And Scott Daniels, the other new GS, should already know as well. The other four returning GS’s have been aware for five years of the same sex wedding and Rick Power’s heretical views. Also, there is evidence that one of the General Superintendents told Will Campbell that “as ministers of the gospel, when we are invited to pray or to read scripture, to perform a ministerial function, we do it.” This GS approved and recommended that Will Campbell participate at a same sex wedding! Which GS was that?  Will Campbell knows, and Rick Power knows. But Rick Power so far has not revealed who that GS is.

What should the General Superintendents Do?

Rick Power has shared his unbiblical views with all the General Superintendents. They know that he is in favor of same sex marriage.  They know that he believes that same sex marriage is good and should be welcomed by the church; that homosexuality is natural, normal and not a choice; that homosexuality is not a sin; that homosexuals are “brothers and sisters”; that homosexuals should participate in all church offices; that the “Spirit” is calling the church to accept these ideas; that “faithful love between same-sex partners should not be considered a violation of God’s will.” And they know that he openly suggests to his pastors in the district that as long as they are not the “official” officiant, they can participate in a same sex wedding.

With all this information that the General Superintendents have, how can Rick Power be allowed to still retain his credentials in good standing in the church?  And note that he has come to an “agreement” with GS Sarmiento to retire, retain his credentials, and still be eligible to be assigned another position in the church. This fact is from his own testimony. Is this the new standard being used by the top leadership in the denomination?

This is reminiscent of the Holland Nazarene District which has been blessing same sex unions for several years now, and nothing has been done! Does anyone care? Does a substantial number of pastors and church leaders care? How many Nazarenes have voiced their concern to the General Superintendents, if they know of this situation? How many Nazarenes actually are fully supportive of Rick Power’s ideas?

The General Superintendents have received my articles directly to their email account. An ordained elder in the church wrote to the General Superintendents sometime in the Spring of 2023 with his concerns. At least one other pastor has communicated directly to a General Superintendent with his concerns. I am sure others have contacted them as well. They have all the information they need.  The question is: what will they do about it, especially now that this situation has been made more public? If Rick Power is following doctrines of demons, why would the church leadership allow him to keep his ordination credentials?

Rick Power and Will Campbell are following doctrines of demons, having departed from the faith. The evidence is clear to anyone with any kind of biblical discernment. There are more questions remaining, including questions about the General Superintendents and their seeming lack of action. Should the Hawaii District be designated a district in crisis? There is more evidence coming out soon, that will describe the corruption in the Hawaii District that Rick Power and others have brought forth.

May God help the Church of the Nazarene bring forward more leaders who will uphold His word fearlessly, and will not compromise with those who “heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons”.

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Transcript of Pastors Meeting With Rick Power: (November 6, 2023)
(Text in bold is for emphasis)

The main reason I’ve asked you to come together this evening is so that I could share a little bit more detail and background of the decision that I announced this week that I’ll be retiring as DS come district assembly in April.
I want to give you the basic information about why this decision was made and then talk a little bit about what you can expect going forward as we begin the transition process for the next DS, and then we’ll see what questions you have. Several months ago, I was contacted by a fellow pastor on the district who wanted to talk to me about something disturbing he had heard.

He had discovered that my daughter, Rachel, had conducted a gay wedding. This took place in January of 2019. The wedding was for the brother of Rachel’s husband, Will Campbell. When Will’s brother got engaged, he asked Will if Will would do the wedding. Will said, I’m sorry, I’m an ordained elder in the Church of the Nazareth. We cannot do same sex weddings. His brother was very disappointed. This created a lot of tension in the family and threatened a rift between the siblings. Rachel got the idea that she could offer to do the wedding. She went online, secured some credential, and she officiated the wedding. Will was there. He participated by reading a poem and by praying a prayer. When this pastor came to me with his concern about this, I explained the context just like I did for you just now and told him that I would not be taking any action against Rachel. Several weeks later, I heard from our General Superintendent, Dr. Christian Sarmiento, and he had received email communications expressing the same concern about the wedding and about some other issues, mostly related to my views and behavior toward LGBTQ people and issues.

Several email exchanges [went] back and forth with the General Superintendent. After all the details were shared and he knew what Rachel’s part had been and what Will’s part had been, he said that Rachel was subject to discipline because she’s a church member and she had violated her membership pledge to uphold the covenants of the Church of the Nazarene; and that I was wrong to allow her to be an employee of the district and to be on the ballot to be elected to district board or council. Rachel has resigned from those positions and will be working with her local pastor to deal with the local church issues that are implicated in this. That was the first thing. I should also say that as far as Will’s participation, that was not a violation of his ordination vows and he is not subject to discipline in that regard.

The second issue that Dr. Sarmiento wanted to talk to me about was a paper that I have written. It’s a paper that I shared with very few people, but that I wrote so that I could be accountable to those in leadership over me. Since he’s our new General Superintendent and I had not yet had a face-to-face meeting with him, I had not shared the paper with him.

Since all this came up, I thought it was past time for him to know my views. I sent him the paper, and in doing so, I accidentally copied someone who was not an intended recipient of the paper. This confidential communication got shared and has been shared multiple times. It now is a public document. If it hadn’t gone public, probably it wouldn’t have come up at all, even though I would have shared it with Dr. Sarmiento. But because it expresses controversial views and I’m in a position of leadership as a district superintendent, this is disturbing to people to know that in my interior views, I do not align 100% with the stated position of the Church of the Nazareth on human sexuality. I make it clear in the paper that I do not believe the Church of the Nazarene should move toward LGBT inclusion. It would be too disruptive. I also make it clear that I have, in my conduct, never violated my ordination vows by performing a same sex wedding, teaching contrary to the statements of the manual, or advocating for LGBTQ inclusion. However, these two things; my failure to take action toward Rachel and the views I expressed in this paper, led Dr. Sarmiento to come to ask me if I would let this be my last year to serve as DS. So, in our relationship at this point, he has been following the manual, paragraph 604. Probably most of you have never paid much attention to the judicial section of the manual, but there’s a lot of very interesting stuff there. Paragraph 604 just says that when there are allegations against someone in a position of leadership, whether that be a local pastor or a DS or whomever, that we should first try to resolve the matter by agreement. What that means is that it’s not through formal charges or some judicial process, but it’s simply by agreement. I have agreed with Dr. Sarmiento that I will retire at the time of our next assembly. I haven’t been asked to surrender my credentials. I haven’t been removed from ministry. I’m free to take any assignment that might come to me after this. I’m not being forced to retire. We’ve reached this decision by agreement. That’s it in a nutshell. I think the most important thing I will say in this meeting is that I love this district just like you love your local church and you work hard for the strength and health of your local church.

I am deeply sorry that my words or actions have caused this disruption in the life of our district that has created division between some of us. I’m so sorry and I apologize to all of you for that. Going forward, here’s what will happen. At times like this, when there’s a transition in district leadership, the district advisory council comes into play, and that’s a larger group than the district advisory board. It’s 10 people. It’s the district advisory board, it’s our district officers, our district secretary and district treasurer. Charles is already part of the advisory board, and then Sharon Santiago, our treasurer, the heads of our auxiliary organization, so that’s Brad Kinoshita for NYI, Pua Kanealii for NDI, and Gayle Ragle for NMI. That’s 10 people. As I was looking over that list, I was really pleased to see that there are five women and five men. There are five laypersons and five clergy. There are- I just figured four people from Oahu and six from the neighbor islands. That’s a really good representative group for our district. They will meet with Dr. Sarmiento and with Stan Reader, who’s our regional director. They’ll meet with him for the first time on November 25th, and they’ll start the process.

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Addendum:

Link to the audio of the Pastors’ Meeting: Nov. 6, 2023

Pictures of Will Campbell’s participation at the same sex wedding:

Link to the wedding video summary:  https://vimeo.com/896932553?share=copy
(If this video also gets blocked, please email me and I will send you a copy)