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A former USF eye doctor, accused of forcing his Christian beliefs on his employees, never spoke publicly about his religion while the controversy was raging. Now, in a deposition, he talks about angels, prophecy and the voice of God.
By MIKE WILSON
© St. Petersburg Times, published October 7, 2001
On Sept. 25, checks from the state of Florida totalling $498,000 arrived at the office of Tampa lawyer John W. MacKay.
That is what it cost taxpayers to settle a lawsuit brought against the University of South Florida by two former ophthalmology professors, Steve Gross and Robert Urban. A third professor, Mitch Drucker, settled a similar suit for $125,000.
The professors' complaint: that former USF ophthalmology chairman J. James Rowsey ruined their academic careers because they didn't share his Christian beliefs. Gross and Drucker are Jewish, and Urban is Roman Catholic.
The professors said Rowsey, a cornea surgeon, prayed over sedated patients, insisted that staff members pray before meetings and made them uncomfortable if they didn't, forced religious literature on his subordinates and favored evangelical Christian doctors over those with other beliefs.
Rowsey resigned from USF in 1999 after an investigation revealed he had used an experimental surgical knife on patients without their permission. He now works at St. Luke's Cataract and Laser Institute for ophthalmologist James P. Gills, an evangelical Christian who endowed the chair Rowsey held at USF.
Urban also works for St. Luke's, but not in the same office as Rowsey, and Rowsey is not his supervisor. Gross is in private practice in St. Petersburg. Drucker is at the University of South Florida.
Two years ago the Times published an article, "The Prayer Warrior," about the religious conflict at USF. (It is on the Web at www.sptimes.com/prayerwarrior.) Because of the pending lawsuits, Rowsey declined to grant an interview at the time.
But in a five-day sworn deposition in September 2000, Rowsey discussed the responsibilities of leadership, his wife's gift of prophecy, his definition of a Christian and the night he heard the voice of God.
Here are excerpts from the deposition, provided to the Times by MacKay.
MacKay: Have you ever referred to yourself as a charismatic Christian?
Rowsey: I have not, that I recall. . . .
Q. Is it an apt label?
A. A charismatic is someone who has inspiration and has some manifestation of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and I would agree that that is a correct label.
Q. Some manifestation of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. What are those gifts?
A. Speaking in tongues, interpretation of tongues, prophecy, word of knowledge, word of faith, gift of healing, those are the main gifts of the spirit.
Q. All right. Do you speak in tongues?
A. Yes. . . .
Q. The second gift you referred to was interpretation of tongues. Does that simply mean understanding what the person speaking in tongues is saying?
A. Yes.
Q. Okay. Is that a gift you have?
A. Intermittently. . . .
Q. The third gift you referred to is prophecy. Is it being able to foretell things that have yet to occur?
A. Yes.
Q. Do you have that gift?
A. No.
Q. Does your wife, Judy?
A. Yes.
Q. Does she sometimes share her prophecies with you?
A. The only prophecy she shared with me is that I will live to be 77. That's the only career or lifetime prophecy that I have received in 15 years.
Q. I don't know that I would want that one shared with me.
A. I will know if she's a prophet if I make it to 77.
Q. We'll all know. Word of knowledge, now I'm not quite sure what that means, that was the fourth gift to which you referred?
A. Word of knowledge is something about the individual that is normally not apparent, from anything that they have told you or anything that they have shared with you, but the Lord shares with you a special need that they have. . . .
Q. Do you have that gift?
A. Occasionally. . . .
Q. Okay. Has God ever shared with you a knowledge about any of your co-workers at the department of ophthalmology, the staff, faculty members, deans?
A. The information he may share with me is someone who is concerned or anxious. You appear to be anxious, that's something that he would be -- it's just a sensitivity. Somebody would say it's just being sensitive to someone else's appearance.
Q. It's not a voice?
A. It's not a voice. A patient may come with a cataract and you tell him they have a cataract and you need to have surgery and you realize they are in pain for something else. So you inquire, "This is not the only thing that's causing you pain today, is there anything else that I can help you with?" "Yes, my husband just left me this morning and took the car and the kids." That's someone that you would like to possibly help.
Q. But did those situations occur while you were at the department?
A. Yes.
Q. Now, what would you do for those people?
A. I may pray with them. They may ask me for advice. Outside of their physical needs, that word of knowledge is stop, stop long enough to find out what the patient's real hurting is about, not just the physical obvious diagnosis and treatment.
MacKay: Do you know what a prayer warrior is?
Rowsey: I define a prayer warrior as someone who is continually or repeatedly an intercessory prayer for the benefit of others, not just in prayer for themselves but for others.
Q. Can you give me an example? . . .
A. I would ask someone to be a prayer warrior for the department of ophthalmology. "I would like you to pray on a daily basis for our personnel, equipment and space, that we are successful, that we'll have a patient population and that we'll be able to solve their problems. Would you do that for me on a daily basis?"
Q. All right . . . Are you a prayer warrior?
A. I was a prayer warrior while I was in the department of ophthalmology and still am.
MacKay: Did (God) tell you why you were coming to Tampa?
Rowsey: He told me to be the chairman of the department of ophthalmology.
Q. God told you that?
A. Yes.
Q. And again, is this something you sensed or was there a voice or a vision or an event?
A. A sense of his direction in prayer.
Q. Can you tell me when and where this occurred and just sort of relive it for us?
A. I was on the faculty of the University of Oklahoma 1976 to 1991. And there was a search committee formed at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit and also at the University of South Florida. And both groups approached me as a possible chairman. And I realized that the University of South Florida had just closed their department of ophthalmology, their Eye Institute, lost $20-million and may lose the residency program. And realized it would be a catastrophe to try to rebuild such a department. So since the offer was quite advantageous to go to Detroit and take over the department, I was predisposed to do that. And in prayer (I realized) what the Lord would like me to do is to try to rebuild the department, rebuild the Eye Institute and start over again at the University of South Florida. And so I changed my direction in prayer. . . .
Q. How did the salaries compare, Ford versus USF?
A. More at Ford.
Q. Are you a born-again Christian?
A. Yes, every Christian is born again. Can't be Christian unless you are born again.
Q. . . . Can you just tell me briefly what's different about a born-again Christian versus a Christian? Or are you telling me there is no difference?
A. If they are Christian, they're born again. . . .
Q. What does born again -- how does the term "born again" modify the term Christian?
A. . . . Every individual has the prerogative of making the decision who they will serve in this lifetime. They may have been raised in a Christian family, have gone to church all of their life, they may have been baptized, but until they have actually individually asked the Lord to come into their life so that they can be understanding God's will, they are not born again and they're not a Christian until then. They may be going to church. They may think they're a Christian, but until they have actually made that commitment, they are not. It's an individual decision, one on one, you and the Lord.
Q. So even though they are calling themselves Christians, they're not true Christians?
A. They just don't know it. They have to make the decision themselves.
Q. And what if they don't?
A. They're not Christian.
MacKay: Just so I know we're on the same page, what are angels?
Rowsey: Angels are spiritual beings assigned by God to various tasks in the universe. . . .
Q. Have you ever known angels to work on behalf of the department of ophthalmology?
A. Well, I pray for the growth and the development of the department of ophthalmology. I do not know of any specific instances where angels would intervene.
Q. Okay. Has your wife ever told you that she has seen angels?
A. Yes. . . .
Q. Did you remember telling Ms. Ormerod (the wife of USF retina specialist David Ormerod) that your wife had reported seeing an angel flying alongside a car?
A. Yes.
Q. Can you tell us the circumstances under which you told Ms. Ormerod that?
A. We were traveling on a circumferencial highway around Dallas and it was at nighttime. And my wife said, "There is an angel outside of the car." I said, "I don't see any angel." And she said, "We're going to be approaching some smoke, and we are to drive through it." I said, "We're not supposed to drive into smoke." She said, "We're supposed to drive through it this time." And we did about 5 minutes later. And we drove straight through it, and there were cars all around us careening off the road, thereafter. So it was a terrible accident that we avoided by recognizing there was an angel there. . . .
Q. Now, why were you telling -- when were you telling Ms. Ormerod about this?
A. I don't recall.
Q. Was it at the time that David was interviewing for the position with USF?
A. I don't know if it was after he had taken a position or not.
Some USF faculty members objected to Rowsey's practice of saying a prayer at the beginning of staff meetings.
MacKay: I think you told me you knew that Mitch Drucker looked at you and asked you instead of doing the prayer (to) do a moment of silence, right?
Rowsey: Yes.
Q. So you were aware that Mitch Drucker . . . took objection to the prayer, correct?
A. Not to me. He suggested an alternative. That would not suggest that he objects to the prayer. He may object to the form of the prayer. Can we each can have our own spiritual relationship of communication individually with God at this time? But he did not address his objections with me, nor did anyone else.
Q. He didn't say what you just said either, did he?
A. No.
Q. He said, "Can we do a moment of silence instead?" Correct?
A. Yes. So I would not expect that to be an objection to prayer.
Q. Wow. Why do you think Mitch would offer an alternative to the prayer if he did not object to it?
A. I can't tell you.
Q. Did you ask him?
A. No.
Q. Why not?
A. It might have been a good idea.
MacKay: Do you ever hear God's voice?
Rowsey: Yes.
Q. Tell me how that works.
A. It has only occurred to me once. And I had a patient that was sent to me . . . with all types of skin lesions all over them and an eye disease that was causing them to go blind, and I had never seen it before. I began to pray about what this disease was and had seen a number of ophthalmologists in the country and no one had been able to figure it out. And I went to sleep that evening and the Lord just woke me up and said "porphyria," just about like that.
Q. How do you spell that?
A. P, O, R, P, H, Y, R, I, A, porphyria. And I said, "What?" And the Lord said, "Read porphyria." So I got up and read it. I had never read it before in the Harrison's Internal Medicine. And so it was a diagnosis that came to me for that patient. I went back and did the laboratory test and that's what the patient had was porphyria. So it's just one of those things where occasionally you hear an audible voice for something that you're praying for, and he gives you a direct answer when you're not smart enough to see it any other way.
Q. Can you describe the voice for me?
A. No, it was just about like mine.
MacKay: (You have said that man is not the center of all things. How is that) relevant to your position as chair of the department at a state university?
Rowsey: I think that the spiritual growth of the individual, his immaterial being, is important in the growth of a physician.
Q. Where is your authority to communicate your thoughts about whether man is the center of all things in your position as chairman of a department in a state university?
A. That's part of leadership. That's what I was hired to provide.
Q. Are there any limits? Are there any areas in one of your employees' lives that you don't have leadership authority over?
A. All of their personal affairs, their finances, their relationships, all of those things outside of how they will take care of patients and train residents . . .
Q. Which would include their right to be a secular humanist?
A. Yes.
Rowsey testified that faculty members were free to leave meetings if they did not want to participate in group prayer.
MacKay: You ever think some people might feel a little intimidated about standing up and walking out of the room when their boss starts his prayer?
Rowsey: Since my head is bowed I would probably not know whether they were out or in, or they came back in.
Q. You don't hear them?
A. I'm in communication. I'm trying to concentrate on what the Lord -- I'm sharing with the Lord and listening. I'm not surveying the room. I don't even know if people have their heads bowed. They can sit there and not bow their heads at all, I would have no idea.
Q. Is it your testimony that you do not believe a faculty member would feel intimidated standing up and walking out of the room when you began your prayer?
A. I don't believe so.
Q. All right. How are they going to get back in without you seeing them then?
A. Why would I care if they went out or came in? That's their prerogative.
Q. Well, since Bob (Urban, one of the doctors suing the university) is here, I have to ask this: Where do Catholics fit along the continuum of righteousness, of thirst and hunger for righteousness?
A. Catholics are Christians. Christians who are born again. . . . The Christian is an individual who has believed in his heart that Jesus rose from the dead and provides him with eternal salvation. And has asked him, because of that belief, to come into his heart and direct his life. That is the definition of a born-again Christian. It's a one-on-one relationship, regardless of the denomination.
Q. Now, you just told me that Catholics are born-again Christians. But do you mean all Catholics or just those who go through that exercise of accepting, sincerely accepting Christ?
A. That's the definition of a Christian. You're not a Christian if that exercise has not been accomplished. Going to church does not make you a Christian. It's that exercise that makes you a Christian.
Q. So have all Catholics done that exercise?
A. I don't know.
Q. I just wonder why you said Catholics are born-again Christians.
A. Well, they are Christians. And any Christian by definition is born again.
Q. And to be a born again, you have to have gone through that exercise?
A. Yes.
Q. Why then did you tell me that, just now, Catholics are born-again Christians? Is that because you believe that all Catholics have gone through this exercise?
A. All Catholics who are Christians have.
Q. Then not all Catholics are born-again Christians?
A. And not all Christians are born-again Christians.
Q. But not all Catholics are born-again Christians?
A. If they are born again they're Christians. If they are not born again, they're not Christians.
Q. So when you just told me not all Christians are born-again Christians, that's not true, is it?
A. . . . Not all individuals who believe that they are Christians are truly Christians. . . .
Q. The tenets of your religion are such that true Christians, those who have accepted Christ, sincerely get eternal life, correct?
A. Yes.
Q. And those that have not, are not true Christians and have not accepted Christ, do not get eternal life, correct? . . . Am I right or wrong on this?
A. Basically individuals have the opportunity to accept eternal life. One of these is to become a Christian and ask God to come into their life. There is a great theological debate about how close you can get to death to make that decision. Is it on your deathbed? Probably. Is it after you have died and been resuscitated? Possibly. How late is it that you can make that decision that God is in charge of the universe?
Q. If a Jew does not make that decision at all, are the tenets of your religion such that he gets eternal life or he does not get eternal life?
A. He does not.
Some members of the USF ophthalmology staff claimed that Rowsey favored Dr. Brad Fouraker because he was also a born-again Christian. Rowsey and Fouraker worked together in Oklahoma.
Q. And after he came to USF did you and he pray together?
A. Yes. . . .
Q. Where?
A. In my office.
Q. Okay. Now, how did that work? Can you give me an example, a particular situation where you and he prayed together?
A. He would come in and have tea in the afternoon and he would tell me how his patients were doing and I would tell him how my patients were doing, and he would tell me about any surgery he has done or any difficulties or complicated cases. And we would exchange that and I would say something like, "What's the biggest problem you have got today?" And he would say, "Well, I've got this perforation and I've got to go to surgery tonight," and I would say, "Can I pray about it?" And I would say something like, "Dear heavenly father, I thank you for Brad Fouraker's expertise. Give him the strength to stay up all night to do surgery and help this patient see again and we praise you for that, in your holy name."
Q. Door open or door closed?
A. Normally door closed.
Q. Did people in the department know that you and Dr. Fouraker were praying in there?
A. I would not know.
Q. Did you ever hear any talk about it?
A. No.
Q. Did you ever pray with Dr. Fouraker for things, like for equipment?
A. Probably.
Q. Okay. For staff?
A. Probably.
Q. Were any of your prayers with Dr. Fouraker for staff ever answered?
A. Well, we prayed for new personnel to come and new secretaries and new faculty members, their success. We felt that when the prayers were answered that we could move into the Eye Institute. It was finally completed, the doors were open, that we have the patient population, all those prayers were answered.
At the time of the deposition, Rowsey had left USF and gone to work for Gills at St. Luke's. So had Urban.
Q. While you were at the department, did you -- was it a practice of yours to bless people?
A. Normally people would ask me how I'm doing today and I would say, "I'm blessed and strong." I may say, "The Lord bless you today" as we exit or we leave company.
Q. Would you come up to people, touch them and tell them that they were blessed?
A. I may say, "The Lord bless you today."
Q. Okay.
A. I may say, "You're a blessing to me."
Q. And accompanied by a touch?
A. Often.
Q. Okay. You still -- I think you still do this, don't you?
A. I sure do. . . .
Q. Are you aware that people in the department, some people were uncomfortable with this blessing practice?
A. Not until I received this lawsuit, no.
Q. Are you aware now that some people were in fact uncomfortable with it?
A. Since I read the depositions, yes.
Q. Okay. And having read those, do you understand why it was that they were uncomfortable with it?
A. No.
Q. Okay. Since you have read the depositions, have you approached any of them and asked them why they were uncomfortable with it?
A. No.
Q. How come?
A. Dr. Gills told me not to hug Dr. Urban anymore.