The following is an open letter from abolitionists Todd Bullis and Matt Tringali to Emilio Ramos and others in agreement with Mr. Ramos who brought accusations and criticisms of their effort to do outreach and agitation outside the church building of Heritage Grace Community Church in Dallas, Texas. This is an important read for a variety of reasons not the least of which is that it brings further clarity of the purpose and need for abolitionists to bring the message of repentance and a cry for justice to our church organizations around us. – Don Cooper
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Our response to Emilio Ramos, Chris Matthews, Robert Reece, James White, JD Hall, John Speed, Marcus Pittman, Tim Hurd, Andrew Rappaport and Len Pettis.
You guys have been directly or indirectly slandering us, speaking all sorts of evil about us, publicly lying about us on the internet, and falsely accusing us. Lies, half lies and some truths. We’ve prayed long enough, listened to your un-brotherly slander and false accusations, and not one of you has asked to talk to us or cared about us whatsoever. In fact, the response has been to delete whatever we might have to say and then block us from seeing or commenting on the things being falsely said against us. Only one person has apologized to us publicly, and that is Joseph Randall Spurgeon, and we would like to thank him publicly for that.
Emilio Ramos has called us cowards, apostate, perverted, cult members and much more, and has also warned fellow Christians to have nothing to do with us. In response to all of that we want to say that we are not great men, nor are we all that smart. We have no status, title, or position to brag about. It is not the pleasure or approval of man that we seek, but rather it is God and God alone that we seek the pleasure of.
We have been called just simple Christians by those who know us and love us, seeking only to be His hands and feet and to serve Him however and wherever He sees fit to place us. We are fools, forgiven and redeemed sinners who daily fall short, and those that know us best know this to be true. We do not make great plans and have never amounted to anything without the help of God.
We have sinned greatly against our family, against our friends, and first and foremost against our God. We have wept and repented at the foot of the cross, and we have received His forgiveness through the love of God, through Jesus Christ and His sacrifice which He paid on the cross. The grace God has given us is by far the most amazing thing we have ever witnessed in our lives, that God would sacrifice His Son for us, that God loves us and gives us people, brothers and sisters, who show us His love, and it is that amazing grace that lift us up and sustains us. I (Todd) am more like Homer Simpson then I am like Christ, and it is only by the grace and mercy of God that I have a wife who loves, supports, and cares for me so much.
Because of who God is, how great He is, how merciful He is, and because of how great our sin was towards Him and how much we have been forgiven by Him, it is impossible for us to hold a grudge against these men. We take no offense even when offense is what was meant to be given towards us. We hold no ill will towards these men, and we pray for them. Not because they deserve it but because of how great a God we have who forgave us so much.
We have not sinned against these men, and they have not been able to prove any such thing according to the Scriptures, and if we have, not one of them have come to us about it. We fear our Holy God, and if we have sinned against Him and you, please bring it before us as brothers, and show us where is our sin through the Scriptures. We welcome that and we will listen and thank you for it.
We only ask you guys one thing. Will you please take a look at your Ecclesiology and maybe realize that the New Testament Church is not always the “pretty little box” you’d like it to be placed in. Just because someone doesn’t “do” church as you would like it to be done, does not make them apostate, nor does it make them not Christian. We are both held accountable to far more people or “elders” as you’d like to say, than any of you might realize, and that is the biblical model of the body of Christ.
We would also like to ask you to maybe examine yourselves and see if maybe you may be falling short in how you view and minister in regards to the fact that there are in Texas over 70,000 abortions (murders) each year, and sadly, the response to this abomination to God has been scant at best by the “church” at large. Texas also has over 23,000 kids in foster care with 13,000 of those kids waiting to be adopted. The facts and the numbers bare out that these kids are here, now, but they are not being adopted, and this is in the midst of over 30,000 Christian churches in Texas. We are just asking you to please look at the problem and to ask yourself what the biblical response to this should be. We do not want to be just hearers of the Word of God, nor do we want to be just preachers of the Word of God, but rather we want to be obedient to the Word of God, i.e. doers of the Word of God.
We hold nothing against any of you men we have named in this letter, as that is between you, your families and God, and we have taken no offense from you guys at all.
May God continue to be glorified, and may He sanctify us, making us ALL into the people He desires us to be.
Todd M Bullis & Matthew Tringali
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