For those new to the area who may not have heard — for those who may not remember — for those who may not want to remember:
In April 2021, the founder and director of the unaccredited Charis Bible College in Woodland Park publicly stated, “As many people as we have in this school here, we ought to take over Woodland Park.” It is on video — 1000s have seen it.
Also said was that they should start with a specific local election because “school board elections will be won by 100 people.” They started there, and Woodland Park has had horrible issues with the school board ever since, as many reports and letters to the editor have demonstrated!
Those issues led to a City Council being elected as the only government institution that could even possibly hold that school board accountable for the nearly $3-million tax-payer money it received each year.
That City Council finally reached its tolerance-end with that board, fulfilling its responsibility to the people by repealing the tax after the school board threatened to sell the Middle School building built with taxpayer dollars as a public-school to a private charter school, Merit Academy. It was revealed the resolution to sell was written without the knowledge of two school board members, Keegan Barkley and David Rusterholtz.
Also revealed was the independent audit of the school board’s books showing 83 discrepancies when only 12 raise alarm, including no accounting for a $1.6 million grant that might have to be paid back! Will we ever see the completely transparent accounting of all this?
All of this and so much more is direct result of the claim that Charis affiliates should “take over” Woodland Park. Now there is an attempt to recall every City Council member motivated by this same threat to “take over.” If you do not want to experience being controlled and ruled by “christian nationalists”/“christofascists,” do NOT sign the petitions and do NOT vote for the candidates running against any City Council member!
They are appropriately labeled these terms, because they do not focus on the “love your neighbor,” “do for others as you want them to do for you” teachings of Jesus. Instead, they focus on getting positions of perceived worldly power to “take over.” It has even been reported by the CO state chair of the Young Republicans that he removed persons from his chapter because they were not US citizens but students at the unaccredited Charis Bible College. It is a non-US citizen at Charis who is behind the recall campaign, funded by the communication advisors for Moms for Liberty, the harshly judgmental group of anti-LGBTQ+ human persons.
Those who seek power to “take over” will call those opposed to them lefty-lunatics, communists, and corrupt. The actual truth is many millions are authentic Christians. Faithful America has most every denomination involved and 180,000 participants who oppose such a “take-over,” for just one example. That’s the truth as this retired United Methodist pastor knows it.
Rodney Noel Saunders is a retired United Methodist pastor from Florissant, CO.
