Howard Carter (evangelist)

1968-1979

In the late 1960s and 1970s he was influential in the charismatic movement's growth in the mainstream churches in Australia and New Zealand, regularly organising "Holy Spirit Teaching Seminars" in Sydney. His teaching was centred on themes of Christ's authority, victorious living and charismatic gifts. The majority of his teachings were distributed through Logos Foundation's "Restore" magazine and short books.^[2] Carter was a charismatic leader who became involved with a number of fundamentalist Authoritarian Protestant religious groups and churches in Australia and the South Pacific.

In the mid-1970s he was instrumental in introducing the Shepherding Movement and associated discipleship from the "Fort Lauderdale Five" of Christian Growth Ministries U.S.A. (CGM) to Oceania. This teaching promoted a pyramid-like authoritarian hierarchy in which each disciple was accountable to a personal pastor (usually the "Household" leader - the name used for cell groups) for whole-of-life direction and personal decisions and written covenants were encouraged - aspects that theologically distanced the Logos movement from the majority of mainstream Protestant Christians.

Doctrines of submission to God's delegated authorities in order to provide "covering" and complete spiritual protection were regularly promoted and were narrowly applied to wives obeying husbands, children obeying parents and disciples obeying leaders. This concept gained momentum over time and was eventually exercised in an almost cult-like manner.^[3] Leaders in the movement were required to be addressed by titles "Brother" and "Sister", which had a side effect of distancing them socially even further from the ordinary members in the movement. 'Brother Howard' announced that he was in "a submitted relationship" to the apostolic group at CGM of Bob Mumford, Ern Baxter, Charles Simpson, Derek Prince and Don Basham. While the teachings appeared to be biblical and promoting disciplined living, the result for non-leaders was a disempowering of their abilities and a neglect of utilisation of their individual gifts and insights.^[4]

1980-1992

The Logos-related churches in 1980 became the Australian Fellowship of Covenant Communities and in the mid-1980s were renamed the Covenant Evangelical Church. In the early 1980s Howard Carter led the Logos movement through a shift in eschatology from pre-millennialism (described as a theology of defeat) to post-millennialism (described as a theology of victory) of the specific stream of Dominionist, Reconstructionist Theology. Some of his leadership team, including Pastor David Jackson of Christian Faith Centre Sydney, left the movement owing to doctrinal concerns as Carter's interpretations and teaching became more extreme and his style more cultish and authoritarian.^[5] A key member at this time, Colin Shaw, believed that Pastor Howard Carter was an "anointed man of God" and Shaw later became the "right-hand" man of Carter in his "outreach and missionary works" in Quezon City, Philippines. Logos used this Filipino church, the Christian Renewal Center (a moderate Pentecostal/Charismatic church), as their base to advance and promote the teachings of the Shepherding Movement. With local assistance in the Philippines, Shaw coordinated and sponsored under the Christian Renewal Centre's name conferences featuring Carter as the lead speaker. However, soon after the revelation of Carter's lifestyle broke,^[6] the Filipino wing of Logos dissolved and dispersed back into established local churches.

During this period, Carter was living an extravagant lifestyle which frequently involved first class air travel to North American and other international locations, five-star hotels and many other luxuries that were beyond the means of his loyal supporters. Carter drove a Mercedes Benz and lived in a large mansion with magnificent views from the Toowoomba escarpment.^[7] Logos Foundation even owned and operated a motel in Canada with Australian staff. The financial affairs of Logos Foundation were shrouded in secrecy from most followers with little or no accountability regarding the vast sums of money that were now involved.^[8][9]

In the 1989 Queensland State election Carter pushed the position that adherence to fundamentalist Christian doctrine was a more important consideration than opposition to the widespread corruption in the conservative Queensland government that had been exposed by the Fitzgerald Inquiry. The campaign was vehemently anti-homosexual and at times the death penalty for homosexuals was advocated, in accordance with Old Testament Law.^[10][11] The Sydney Morning Herald later described part of this campaign when they published "Homosexuality and censorship should determine your vote, the electorate was told; corruption was not the major concern."^[12] The same article quoted Carter from a letter he had written to supporters at the time, "The greenies, the gays and the greedy are marching. Now the Christians, the conservatives and the concerned must march also". An earlier article published in the Herald quoted a Logos spokesman in reference to the call for the death penalty for homosexuals in order to rid Queensland of such people, who stated "the fact a law is on the statutes is the best safeguard for society".^[13]

At the peak of his power towards the end of this period, Carter used his so-called 'personal revelations from God' to exert enormous influence over the lives of his followers and the direction of the organization. His 'personal revelations' were put on a par with scripture by his followers and at times were effectively treated as over and above scripture. This was in practice an effective shift from being solely a fundamentalist religion to the realm of overt traits of a cult.^{[14] [15]} The Sydney Morning Herald published an article in October 1990 which quoted several disillusioned followers, including the statement, "...we felt we had lost control over our lives. It was all dictated to us from above and that was very oppressive. Everything centered around Howard Carter; he had all the power".^[16]

1990-1991

In 1990 Carter lost control of Logos Foundation as a result of a public adultery scandal. Carter's alleged submission and accountability to the Ft. Lauderdale Five, who were purported to ostensibly provide a fail-safe discipleship that would in part protect him from personal failures, was a farce.^[17] When Carter was exposed, it became known that he had engaged in "sexual affairs that dated back many years" ^[18]