Avanti Ministries to close

Tony Anthony‘s ministry is closing.

Both organisations said they “take serious note” of the inquiry’s findings and as a result Avanti said it was “no longer appropriate” to continue supporting Taming the Tiger. The organisation has since decided to close entirely.  

“After much prayer Avanti have decided the time has come to close its ministries,” a statement on its website says. “The Board of Avanti ministries would like to thank all for their support and prayers over the years and give thanks to God for so much achieved in so many lives.”

Having your founder shown to be a fraudster will do that. Worse is being found to have not taken seriously concerns raised over the years.

So is Mr Anthony taking the Christian route and confessing his sin? Nope.

In his statement, Anthony said information about his family history had come to light that he was unaware of when first working on Taming the Tiger and that he now fully accepted that some of the details in the book “are no longer historically accurate”.

“For example, as a very young boy I was raised to believe that the man in whose house I lived and who trained me in Kung Fu was my grandfather. It has since come to light that this individual was not my biological grandfather,” he said.

“Whilst I now recognise this is the factual truth, I cannot accept that the reporting of my memory as it appears in Taming the Tiger is ‘incorrect’. It is wisely recognised that it is common for people to recall past events differently.

Sorry, but caught out is caught out. Tony is now trying to pretend that the problem is details from his distant past which were hazy in his memory.

But in fact, those details (which are clearly false) are only the beginning of his problems. Pretty much his entire book has been shown to be riddled with lies, including details of his more recent conviction, and how that came about. Indeed, much has been shown to be clear fantasy, involving organisations which have never existed, fictitious people doing jobs that simply did not exist, and actions which are physically impossible.

And that is just his book. I’m chasing up some allegations at the moment, that he stole materials from a ministry here in New Zealand. It seems that he is defined much more by dishonesty than he is by any faith in the risen Savior.

He says he will produce a new edition of his book, clearly thinking that by making small changes he can fool enough people to carry on making sales… or something. 

Stay tuned.