143 thoughts on “Location, Location, Location”

  1. First? All I see is “Dick” (as in Road) and Heffner.

    I know the two can be considered related. Is there something else I missed?

  2. Gee, I now gloat the rest of the afternoon for being first, even if I didn’t spot the right thing in the post.

    However, I do think this guy is first-class nut case if you need to leave your church because the pastor quotes Greek or other translations of the Bible.

  3. Yeah, what did those original Hebrew and Greek scribes know? God gave us the Good Book in English!

    :: groans ::

    I’ve heard of the high road and the road well-traveled, but never the Dick Road.

    1. if the King James was good enough for Paul, it’s good enough for me. we don’t need no “modern” translations.

  4. I want to find a public washroom and write inside the stalls, ”For a good time call Dick Heffner 394-8051 ”

  5. But if your Authorized King James Version 1611 is so perfect, there should be nothing to correct in it in the first place. Kind of like how one plus one equals two…

    1. Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of King James our God.

    2. IF your pastor corrects the KJV1611 with Greek or other….then you’re obviously not in a TRUE Bible-Believing Baptist church. So if you get into a TRUE BBBC, then the MOG has authority to translate the KJV1611 for you. HAY-man?

        1. Thank you. I consider that a compliment coming from someone who is apathetic…or whatever. πŸ™‚

  6. “Greek or other translations”?
    Please say this is a joke. Please be a joke. Please, please, please.

    1. I’m sure it’s legit.
      Too far gone to be a joke.
      No matter how crazy you go as a joke, there’s going to be a True Believer out there twice as crazy and Dead Serious.

      1. I classify that under “My crazy is more crazy than your crazy but not as crazy as that gut’s crazy”.

        1. Maybe that should be “..that GUY’s crazy…” I don’t know this guy, but I know “..that GUT’s crazy..” Would be appropriate ins lot of cases….

    1. Foreword? I’m sure there was no such thing in the King James Version I picked up at Dollar Tree.

    1. I saw that I had to get back in church or the Lord was going to kill me,

      This is the kind of god I used to serve. Malice and hurtfulness called Love. They have a warped definition of Love. “God loves you so He beats you.” God loves you so He will terrorize your life if you make a mistake.

      Such teaching leaves permanent scars.

      1. “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Romans 8:1

        It is hard to shake the shackles of legalism. The fundy mannogawd taught us we have to follow their standards to claim that verse, which is not true.

    2. Wow! This man sure gets a lot of messages from his life’s experiences. Another person could have the same life experiences and conclude: 1) I am lousy at driving motorcycle. 2) Maybe, I’m not so good at being a pastor, too. 3) Perhaps, every word of God being pure doesn’t refer to a translation.

  7. Here’s a snippet…

    “I went back up to North Carolina, sold my house and land, quit my job and went to Pensacola Bible Institute in 1979. After Graduation in 1982, I asked the Lord where He wanted me to go and the only place that came into my head was Belmont, NC. When we moved back here, Some folks in Charlotte, NC wanted to start a church, so I pastored Bible Believers Baptist Church for three years and shut it down after all the people left. I’m sure I got out of the Lord’s will by not trying to keep that church open and I guess I was put on the shelf for a while because of quitting when the Lord didn’t tell me to quit. We haven’t gotten to Belmont yet, but we’re in Lowell, which is just about 10 miles away and who knows, the Lord could open up a building in Belmont anytime. It’s just been 33 years since I prayed that prayer. “

    1. Wow. Just wow. So much ignorance of Gods will, and such lack of introspection. This is just sad. I feel bad this man has to live his Christian life like this.

      1. i think it’s worse that he’s living like this and thinking it’s a Christian life. You’re right, it’s sad.

    2. I know when I close my eyes and search for where to go to church, all I keep seeing and hearing is, “Barbados….. Barbados”.

      1. Funny how they believe their thoughts are inspired – just like their 1769 Bible version.

        1. Yeah, but notice only his thoughts came from God..The Lord kept yanking him around ..Other people’s thoughts just ain’t right. He wasn’t Christian enough, all those schools, weren’t fundy enough. Those people who left his church weren’t Christian enough, and he went to kicking himself again for not following enough. So sad and self defeating.

  8. “Bible Believers Baptist Church”….because all other Baptist don’t believe the Bible!
    Visit and here Pastor Dick this Sunday
    Located next to the old oak tree on 1611 Tommy Rd

  9. However, soon I was fooled into believing that you had to know Greek or Hebrew in order to understand the bible. I bought Oliver Green’s books, then got a Sword of the Lord and bought John R. Rice’s books and thought I was going to learn something, I didn’t.
    Right from Preacher Tommy’s mouth!

  10. Dear SFL Reader:

    Years ago, I saw a road sign indicating a turn off to Sodom Road.

    If ever a church was needed, it would be on the corner of Dick and Sodom…

    Christian Socialist

    PS: And we were given Hebrew and Greek autographs because … ?

    1. I don’t have any Hebrew or Greek dudes’ autographs in my ol’ King Jimmy book, but I do have Jack Hyles’s.

      Or did I tear out that page? IDR.

  11. @Christian Socialist:
    They were put there by the Deceiver, just like them dinosaur ‘fossils’, don’t ya know.

  12. There’s a Dick Rd. here by the Buffalo, NY airport. I am serious. No joke. Just a fact.

  13. I found this guy’s current website — http://www.akjbible.com/

    He’s a Confederate. He preaches against miscegenation. If I didn’t know better I’d think he was an exaggerated caricature of a NC preacher. But I believe he is as legit as his kind can be.

    I started looking for more on this guy because he’s kind-of local for me, too. I live in Matthews, NC, lil town southeast of Charlotte. My best friend lives in Lowell. I wanted to make sure she wouldn’t accidentally wind up at his church.

    1. Wow, this guy is seriously racist…
      He even claims that the “mark of Cain” is black skin.
      His article on the evils of integration is so full of racist stereotypes – for example, he says that the 1 John 2:14 describes the 3 main races. “Lust of the flesh” is apparently the black person’s weakness, “lust of the eyes” is the white person’s weakness, and “pride of life” is the Asian’s weakness.
      This is sad and evil.

      1. Here in the UK ‘Incitement to Racial Hatred’ is an offence under the Public Order Act – is there not any legislation covering this type of display of prejudice in the USA?

        1. Our First Amendment (guarantee of freedom of speech) pretty much trumps it. Hate speech by private individuals is allowed, as long as they don’t make any direct threats.

        2. Americans have always been fans of incitement since colonial times. Like BG says violence threats & fire in a theatre are about the only limitations on speech. We let the NY Times publish the Pentagon Papers & I think Daniel Ellsberg was I believe eventually found not guilty, or unconvicted at least,

          ACLU proudly protects Americans rights to say all kinds of vile things including the Klan & Westboro.

        3. I don’t like what this man says, but I don’t like the government telling him that he can’t say it. I prefer all of us to stand up and point out how wrong he is.

        1. I was about to say the same thing. He is Ruckman’s answering machine playing his pre-recorded message. He just oozes Ruckman.

      1. Dear Big Gary:

        Alternatively, so long roads make room for people, we’re going to meet dicks like him …

        Christian Socialist

    2. I just looked at the web site, and this guy is stuck in a pre- 50s time warp. The sermon on “Babble Rabble” (not his, by the way) speaks about how only “blacks can reach other blacks.” Basically, church segregation is good for everyone. KJV-only can be your opinion/practice, but we are long past the days, I hope, of the segregation this guy promotes. I almost wanted to post “hastersRus” somewhere on his site.

      1. I really hope his kids (if any) see him for the filthy racist he is, and refuse to promote such teaching to the next generation in their family.

    3. Oy. The site design is straight out of 1998.

      As far as the content is concerned, no words can adequately express how bad it is.

      1. When you open the “Dixie Outfitters” home page, you see a big picture of dead bodies on a battlefield. If that doesn’t get you in the mood to shop for racist clothing, I don’t know what will.

      2. I don’t think that Dixie Outfitters is his site, I think he probably sells or buys some stuff from there. His site isn’t very clear on why he links to Dixie Outfitters, but other than the link he has, it doesn’t appear to be associated with him at all. Just racist allies.

    4. From his site…

      “OUR PURPOSE IS:
      To see people saved!
      To see saved people grow!
      To see saved people see people saved!
      To see saved people see saved people grow!”

      May I? Thank you.

      To see saved people see saved people grow to be saved!
      To see saved people see saved people grow to be saved to grow!
      To see saved people who have seen saved people grow to be saved and to grow to save!
      To see saved people who have grown to be saved to grow continue to save their growths!

      1. The lines within the quotes are his. I made up the rest. Cuz I’m like that (read: a snarky tart).

    5. Oh, ^^THIS^^ website takes my breath away…no, seriously, I’m hyperventilating. Too many memories.

      1. Ack. This was supposed to be in reply to Sharon when she indicated she is somewhat local.

  14. ” the Lord whipped me through motorcycle falls 5 times and other things that happened to me and my family. . . . I saw that I had to get back in church or the Lord was going to kill me, so I made myself go to church for three weeks straight.”

    Go to church three weeks straight, and you’ll be saved from the Lord killing you! That’s his “plan of salvation.”

    1. “… the Lord whipped me through motorcycle falls 5 times …”
      Every consider the possibility that you’re just bad at riding that thing?

      1. Personally, I think that if one is saved, they will WANT to go to church. Obviously, I’m not saying it has to be an IFB church, and in fact, given the 1) doctrinal issues I have with them (on music, KJV-only, etc.), 2) the fact that they’re just about dang near cult-like, and 3) how they’re one of the WORST when it comes to clergy child sexual abuse, I will NEVER consider an IFB church as my church home. General Baptist or Free Will Baptist is about as close I’ll consider coming to that.

      2. I think sometimes you have to “make yourself” go to church because you’re out of the habit or leery of change or reluctant to make the social effort of meeting new people or just kinda enjoy the novelty and comfort of sleeping in on Sundays.

        Hopefully, though, one finds a church where one looks forward to attending instead of simply enduring it.

        1. I do have to admit that I’m the kind who never met a stranger, while my wife is the complete opposite, and so I would have to say that she is definitely one of those who doesn’t particularly enjoy meeting new people. Even though I looked long and hard for a God-fearing Christian wife, which she most definitely is, she does sometimes tend to sleep in on Sunday mornings.

  15. Corrected:

    “Attention Christians!”

    “Are you tired of having an intelligent pastor that understands Greek and can apply it wisely in Bible study?”

    “If so, call…”

  16. Reading his testimony:

    I pastored Bible Believers Baptist Church for three years and shut it down after all the people left

    I have never heard of someone that drove off ALL of the people he started a church with. Did he ever consider that maybe HE is the problem?

    1. “I have never heard of someone that drove off ALL of the people he started a church with. Did he ever consider that maybe HE is the problem?”

      Ya think?

    2. I have to say, though, that shutting down the church after ALL the people left was probably a good move.

  17. He seems to have lived his entire life by feelings; something is “of God” if it “tore him up” inside, or if he was “balling [sic] like a baby”

    He got “nothing” from John R Rice, or from Tennessee Temple, or from Harold Sightler? Hmmmm…. methinks the problem is him.

  18. I can’t help but wonder if the very memory of this church was some kind of embarrassment to the city of Charlotte, NC, because I just looked, out of curiosity, to see where this church was located, so I typed in the address on both Google Maps and Bing Maps, and both of them instead went to 3608 Cowboy Lane, which leads me to believe that that street has been renamed.

    1. What does it say about cowboys if they decided that Dick Road and Cowboy Lane were synonyms?

  19. I think it says that at the intersection of Dick Road and Cowboy Lane lies Brokeback Mountain.

  20. I’m assuming that was a very short road. Did it come to an end sooner than expected?

  21. If the target of your “outreach” marketing is already-converted Christians going to other churches, you are doing it wrong.

    1. Unfortunately, that is the way most Fundy churches recruit new folks to their “purer” places of worship.

      1. Yes. They do see it as evangelism. Because people who go to “other” churches (which don’t think as they do and do things their way by their standards ) are not Christians at all. We have a few churches like that, who think they are the only ones with the truth, here in Northern Ireland. It breaks my heart πŸ™

        1. Paul, one of my sisters wants to leave the Exclusive PBs because she no longer feels it is ”the right place” but does not know where ”the right place” is. I have tried to point out that maybe there isn’t one right place, (making all others wrong), but she truly does not seem to understand me. It is like we are speaking different languages.

        2. If I ever find the Perfect Church, I won’t join it, because it won’t be Perfect any more. As far as Fundy churches are concerned, to paraphrase Groucho, I wouldnt want to join a church that would have me as a member

  22. According to the Charlotte Magazine website: In 1997, Mecklenburg County commissioners heard the pleas of six people who lived on what’s now called Cowboy Lane: A dead end street off Beatties Ford Road. People kept stealing the road sign, making it hard for ambulances, fire trucks, police cars and everybody else to find it. The people who lived there, according to Creative Loafing, were tired of the riducule. A man whose family provided the name for the road pleaded his case. He lost. And so, by a 7-2 vote, commissioners changed the name of Dick Road.

    1. Name of the road was changed in 1997, and they still are using it as their mailing address in 2015? I suspect I know who the Dick was that was defending the road name in 1997

  23. I don’t believe that Dick Road exists as a road in Charlotte, North Carolina.
    . . .
    I have no idea if there might be a Dick Road living in Charlotte, North Carolina.

  24. Having had a opportunity to examine an original, 1611 printing of the AV/KJV, all KJV only arguments are easy to destroy. Thoroughly.

    The translators’ marginal notes are full–as in, on every single page–of notes along the lines of “This is what the original Hebrew” or “the original Greek says.” Seriously. These folks ought to just look at a copy for once. I’ll bet there are facsimile copies online somewhere.

  25. I guess I’ve been away from the fundie camp long enough to have not observed the downward spiral into extreme legalism and superstition. In my childhood fundy church, the Greek and Hebrew was referenced frequently to clarify the meaning. The pastor and other guest speakers were well versed in the Bible and used it extensively in their sermons with cross referencing and study. I remember my pastor even using the Living Letters (the Pauline epistles in modern English) on occasion. I never heard the typical Hitleresque fundie rants until I attended a women’s conference at Jack Hyles’ church. It was horrible, not enough space here to elaborate, not necessary anyway. How crazy can they be? Very.

    1. I remember sitting in my first fundie church; the pastor was a BJU grad and referred to the Greek quite a lot (he was a scholar at heart; he had an honorary doctorate but he didn’t really use it much until he became the head of a mission board and credentials looked nice, I guess, and, IMO, he deserved the thing; he was pretty brilliant and extremely well-studied). Anyway, he would give fuller meanings of texts from the Greek quite often. My mom was a staunch NIV user at the time, and whenever he would say “the Greek could also mean…” she’d silently point at her Bible and mouth “that’s what MINE says”. It was funny. We weren’t a KJV-only church; he used it for the sake of peace since some people were uncomfortable with modern translations; ironically a bunch of people left that church over his stance on the KJV, despite the fact that he used it without fail, to found “Antioch 1611 Baptist Church”.

      Their website would make a pretty good FWOTW. Although the whole thing actually makes me rather sad. They’re all really wonderful people, particularly the two founding families. They just got sucked into some really weird stuff and ended up going off the deep-end. I grieve for them.

      1. CS, I’ve done what your mom would do with multiple modern versions. I love it when the preacher is explaining what a verse means and I could save him all that work and time just by reading aloud from the text in front of me. That works even better with the NLT.

        the Admiral

  26. So how does he justify preaching on the KJV? If the KJV is the perfectly inspired Word, then there is no need for the preacher–just read the scripture and go home.

    1. Yeah. I always found annoying those people who would look down on you for reading a Bible commentary: “I don’t need nothing but the Bible.” Yet we were supposed to listen to HIS thoughts.

      Thankfully I wasn’t raised in that kind of ignorance though I came across it as an adult. Ignorance, arrogance, and hypocrisy – what a nauseating blend!

      1. One of my seminary professors was asked by a student “but aren’t we suppose to rely on the Holy Spirit? Going to commentaries and such is a show of mistrust.”

        The seminary professor smiled and said, “It might be nice to give the Holy Spirit something to work with.”

        1. In that case why don’t we all get private revelation? Why have a book? Why have any religious gathering or education?

        2. This is one of those things, some people call them mysteries, some contradictions…. they don’t make sense to me.

        3. This reminds me of the name of the large HEB supermarket chain here in Texas.
          I’ve told this story before, but I enjoy telling it:

          The HEB stores were founded by Howard Edward Butt, Sr. and his mother in 1905. Pretty early on, he realized that “Butt Store” wasn’t the greatest business name, so he used his initials, instead.
          The Butt family still owns the business, and still chooses to use Howard, Sr.’s initials instead of the family surname.

        4. Balance is important. The fundamentalist is inherently unbalanced. They claim to be “New Testament” Christians, but at the time of the New Testament, Scripture was the Old Testament. Even then, new writings claiming Authority were coming out, actually superseding established Scripture!

          Both Paul and the writer of Hebrews pointed out the inherent flaws in the Law. God had created an imperfect product that needed to be replaced! Hebrews tells us the Law is obsolete and Romans tells us the Law was ineffective. Galatians tells us that we aren’t under a schoolteacher any longer, but are to act like adults on our own, coming to a grown up faith. We aren’t even living in the Father’s House to need His direct approval for every decision we make. And of course, everyone has their own opinion of what the Father would or would not approve. He just keeps quiet and lets everyone squabble.

          The Book doesn’t have all the answers. That isn’t to say it doesn’t have any, but it isn’t even a book of formulas. Rather it chronicles the experiences of people like ourselves as they meet God and learn of Him.

          I was stuck in time, too, as fundies are. But I got unstuck! Thanks be to God!

        5. Well sweet baby Moses!! You’re from Texas, BG? Whereabouts? I’m about an hour south of Houston.

        6. And strangely enough, I’m about to move into an apartment right behind an HEB (peace be unto it [gotta give it it the proper reverence, right? πŸ˜‰ ]).

        7. I’m about six hours south of Houston (by road, that is)– down in the extreme southern tip of Texas.

        8. Good deal! Maybe we should get together some time over steaks.

          May all manner of positive energies be with you, my fellow Texan!

    2. But we NEED good old fashioned preachin!

      I love my pastor, but he’s extremely long-winded and sometimes sitting for that long is torture for me. I have short legs and our pews are an awkward height, and also I have ADHD, which means I have the attention span of a hamster. I take notes, which helps, but last weeks notes contain only points 1,2,4, and 6 because I was seriously drifting by point three. I’m thinking of moving and when I do I’m pretty excited to pick out my very own church… As sad as I’ll be to leave mine if this happens, I’m curious to try every church I can lay hands on before I settle somewhere.

  27. Again with the KJV being the “true” or “authorized” version. Who authorized it? King James? God?

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