CRI has received many requests for information about Gene Scott. We can here only indicate what some major problems are and suggest a tentative evaluation.
Gene Scott (Ph.D., Stanford) is a very intelligent minister in the Assemblies of God tradition. He gained a reputation as a troubleshooter and fund raiser in the early 1970’s; when Faith Center fell into financial woes, he was called to be its pastor in late 1975. In 1978 the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) launched an investigation into the church’s use of contributions. Scott managed to prevent the FCC from seeing the donors’ list, but was unable to stop them from pulling the plug on Channel 30 in Glendale in 1983. Since then, however, Scott has obtained air time on other stations, and has in fact become even more popular and well-known.
The concerns that Christians have, however, have little to do with the FCC and the church’s use of funds. During the last few years, Scott has become more and more outrageous and offensive. His appearance, increasingly unkempt and outlandish, deliberately offends societal standards of propriety (compare Paul’s lifestyle 1 Corinthians 9:19-23). His language is crude, abusive, and profane, clearly violating God’s standards for Christians (Ephesians 4:29-31; 5:4; Colossians 3:8). Also, there is increasing concern regarding his approach to fund-raising.
On a positive note, Scott does appear to hold to the basic evangelical doctrines of the faith, closely resembling the Assemblies of God tradition. However, he also dabbles in pyramidology and seems to promote a variation of the erroneous Anglo-Israelism doctrine. (CRI has information on both of these aberrational teachings.) In any case, a Christian ministry must be evaluated on the basis of both doctrine and practice; in the area of practice, Scott’s ministry cannot, in our opinion, be considered acceptably Christian.
At this point, our conclusion is to advise Christians not to be involved with Dr. Scott’s ministry and not to go to him for instruction in God’s Word. This does not mean that we make any judgment about his own standing with God.