Ex-For Today guitarist: "Is Mattie Montgomery in a Cult?"

Ex-For Today guitarist (and apparent homophobe) Mike Reynolds has again provided some provocative comments; this time when writing via his personal blog.

It seems backlash against past comments, namely his proclamation that "homosexuality is a sin", has not diminished the musician's misguided stance.

In further inflammatory statements, Reynolds directly questions former bandmate Mattie Montgomery.

"I am writing this for two reasons. First, because I served side-by-side with Mattie for 6 years I feel the responsibility to call him to alter his current trajectory and to re-align himself with Biblical truth. Second, because I care about young men and women who would seek to align themselves with Mattie and fall into a spiritually abusive situation.

I want to see both Mattie and those under his influence succeed in pure and simple devotion to Christ," Reynolds begins.

In early 2014, Montgomery initially provided a response to Reynolds' initial diatribe, telling Alt Press:

"The fact that there are people who call themselves Christians but go on the news and picket soldiers’ funerals and say stuff like “God Hates Fags?” These people totally dishonor God, and disrespect God and they dishonor and disrespect people who are made in God’s image."

In the aforementioned and recent blog post, Reynolds expands with typically extreme remarks.

"That year, AP magazine interviewed Mattie and asked him about his views on gay marriage[1]. He said simply that if he were a law maker he would vote to legalize gay marriage[2]. I responded to his interview to demonstrate that his new view on marriage is a radical departure from the Biblical and historical position[3]. I mention that because it was this interview that first sparked a sense of responsibility for me to contrast what Mattie said with the scriptures.

So, the question--is Mattie in a cult?

Mattie goes to a church called The Rock in Mobile, AL. This church is one of a network of churches all headed up by "apostle" F. Nolan Ball. "Apostle" Ball separated from the Assemblies of God in 1986 "to more fully pursue the purposes of Yahweh.[4]" Apparently, that included starting what I believe every sober-minded person would consider a cult. You can quickly google “Apostle Ball” and find numerous testimonies of spiritual abuse and other ecclesiastical issues[5, 6, 7, 8]. While I understand that subjective testimonies such as these are not necessarily conclusive, I do believe it may add objectivity to hear from others outside of my particular position."

You can read the full interview here.