The Legacy of IFB’s Lester Roloff Comes Under Scrutiny

"My work is going to follow after me and yours is going to follow after you. Dear friend, I'm going to have about the same kind of works that follow after me that I had with me while I lived. There's no other way. Whether you like it or don't like it, if you live rotten, you are going to have some rotten works follow you."

Lester Roloff

http://roloff.org/

Screen Shot – Roloff Evangelistic Enterprise, Inc. Website

We are continuing our focus on 'teen homes' supported by Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) churches.  In this post we will introduce you to the man who has been credited with being the founder of these homes — Lester Roloff.  Roloff was born in 1914 in Dawson, Texas.  He grew up on a farm and learned the value of hard work from an early age, according to his ministry website.  Of course, many in his generation were raised on farms and also knew the value of hard work – just sayin'. 

Roloff was 'saved' during his early teens and later decided to become a preacher.  In order to prepare for the ministry, he first attended Baylor University.  While in college, he married Marie Brady, and they quickly began their family.  After graduating from Baylor, he and his wife moved to Fort Worth, Texas so Roloff could attend Southwestern Seminary.  He pastored several churches, and later moved to Corpus Christi, Texas where he was called to pastor Park Avenue Baptist Church (which would later become known as Second Baptist Church).  While there, Roloff became a popular speaker at revival services and evangelistic gatherings.

According to his bio,

In 1951, Brother Roloff left the pastorate of Second Baptist and became a full-time evangelist and radio minister. That same year, he founded Roloff Evangelistic Enterprises, Inc., as a non-profit, tax-exempt corporation to coordinate all his ministries.

He conducted revival meetings in tents across much of the central and south east portions of the United States. As his ministry grew, he also felt he needed a church home from which to base his work. This led to his founding of the Alameda Baptist Church in Corpus Christi in 1954.

While at Alameda Baptist Church, Roloff began an outreach for alcoholic men.  That was in 1951.  Seven years later (1958), he founded  The Lighthouse for Boys — a place to sober up delinquent boys.  According to the website,

“The Lighthouse” was “a place for delinquent boys to be isolated from drugs and liquor until they were delivered. It its first seven years of operation, there were “almost six hundred boys who found their first real home at The Lighthouse.”

Nine years later (1967) Roloff became aware of the need for a home for unwed pregnant girls.  Not long after this realization, the Rebekah Home for Girls was established near Corpus Christi, Texas.  Subsequently, the Texas Welfare Department decided that in order for the home to operate, it must be licensed by the state of Texas.  Roloff strongly objected to any oversight by stating:

“licensing these homes is as unnecessary and wrong as licensing a church, … at issue is the constitutional principle of separation of church and state. This plainly is government interference with religion. …

Why should we have to have a license to run a church home any more than we would have to have a license to run the church? It actually means that we take God’s money and let the state, which is altogether unprepared to run a Christian home, run the home. ….

I believe that every state home ought to have a license. I believe that every church that takes state money out to be under a license. But with me it is not a matter of preference, it is a matter of conviction.”

Roloff is highly regarded in certain Christian circles (particularly IFB with which he aligned himself in 1956) for fighting against state regulation of these homes.  He even went to jail twice for failing to abide by court orders.  According to the Roloff Evangelistic Enterprises website:

Ownership of the homes was ultimately transferred from Roloff Evangelistic Enterprises, Inc. to the Peoples Baptist Church. Brother Roloff continued to fight to keep the homes for children open under the umbrella of Peoples Baptist Church. At the end of a long court battle, the Supreme Court of the United States refused to hear the appeal that would allow the homes to remain unlicensed and open.

The long legal battle took a heavy toll on Brother Roloff’s health, the finances of the ministry and on his personal finances. Till the very end, Brother and Mrs. Roloff lived modestly and committed all of themselves and their resources to their ministry.

The Wiki article on Lester Roloff provides the following information regarding his refusal to comply with state regulations of these homes:

Some of the homes were temporarily closed in 1973 because Roloff refused on church-state issues to license the home through the state government. The institutions re-opened in 1974 after Roloff successfully appealed to the Texas Supreme Court which ruled in Roloff's favor that it was unconstitutional to close the homes down. At one point, Roloff transferred ownership of the homes from his evangelistic corporation to his church, thus compelling the state to sue the "new" owners (and restart the entire litigation) while he kept the homes running. The Attorney General refiled the case and secured an injunction that tried to shut down the ministry. In 1975, the state passed laws that required the licensing of youth homes. Roloff was arrested twice for refusing to comply with this law.

In 1979, in an incident known as the "Christian Alamo", Roloff urged churches and pastors across America who supported the Roloff ministry to come to Corpus Christi and form a human chain around the church to prevent the Texas Department of Human Resources from removing children from the homes. Legal battles with the State of Texas continued, and the homes were closed and re-opened…

The Patheos website has a helpful timeline regarding Roloff Ministries and its founder's resistance to government oversight.  Another excellent website that discusses these specifics is here.

Roloff, who had an extensive speaking schedule, was a licensed pilot.  On the morning of November 2, 1982, he and a girl vocal group took off from Corpus Christi to embark on a seven day preaching tour.  The plane he was piloting crashed near Normangee, Texas (about 100 miles north of Houston).  There were no survivors. 

Although Lester Roloff's life was cut short, his legacy continues.  Not only did he establish a number of homes for troubled boys, girls, alcoholic men, etc, but he inspired the establishment of other homes like New Bethany Home for Girls, which we discussed last week.  

Lester Roloff has been memorialized at Hyles-Anderson College by having a park named after him, and he was posthumously inducted into National Religious Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 1993.  Those in the IFB laud him as a true hero of the faith.

Over twenty years have passed since that NRB award was given, and Lester Roloff's legacy appears to be extremely tarnished by the abuse stories stemming from the teen homes he established and inspired.  In our upcoming post, we will take a closer look at the Rebekah Home for Girls, established by Roloff.  The survivors have ben bravely speaking out, and we will be sharing their painful testimonies.

Lydia's Corner:   Leviticus 13:1-59   Mark 6:1-29   Psalm 39:1-13   Proverbs 10:10

Comments

The Legacy of IFB’s Lester Roloff Comes Under Scrutiny — 99 Comments

  1. Ah, Lester Roloff….talk about a blast from my childhood through college years past.
    Even conservative SBC Texans made fun of old Lester. He seemed so angry all the time.

  2. K.D. wrote:

    Ah, Lester Roloff….talk about a blast from my childhood through college years past.
    Even conservative SBC Texans made fun of old Lester. He seemed so angry all the time.

    I had never heard of him until the last few years when his name was mentioned in some circles concerning IBF abuses. He is an archetype isn’t he? He could easily be one of Tom Wolfe’s bizarre and creepy characters in a novel.

  3. A local IFB-run radio station (fortunately, does not have a large signal radius) plays Roloff sermons nightly. The few times I’ve listened, they seemed so filled with hate and made my stomach churn. And the local IFB pastor puts Roloff on a pedestal. It makes me sick to think that THAT is in our rural community.

  4. @ K.D.:
    As a young boy in the 1970’s I watched the documentary on him in our IFBC (now it’s on YouTube). If memory serves me right, he even spoke at our church. I recall his persona as “the mighty victim” who was being persecuted by the government but he wouldn’t back down from “God’s principles”. Now that I am an adult, this sounds an awful lot like abuser language. Ever the victim, always misunderstood. And yes, he was always angry.

  5. “Of course, many in his generation were raised on farms and also knew the value of hard work – just sayin’.”
    @ Deb:
    This made me LOL!

  6. @ Lola:

    I will be looking into that as well. Like Lydia, I only recently heard of Roloff – within the last few weeks. I'm gonna do my best to research the legacy he left with these so-called 'homes'. More posts to follow…

  7. Lola wrote:

    A local IFB-run radio station (fortunately, does not have a large signal radius) plays Roloff sermons nightly. The few times I’ve listened, they seemed so filled with hate and made my stomach churn. And the local IFB pastor puts Roloff on a pedestal. It makes me sick to think that THAT is in our rural community.

    Lola, it’s in EVERY rural community in the Deep South….just look around. It’s there.

  8. BTW- doesn’t Hyles-Anderson College still have the wreckage from Roloff’s plane in the park on campus?
    Sort of like a ” shrine?”

  9. Why did Roloff open the homes to begin with? Was it because he truly wanted to help children at first, or because he wanted control over them?

  10. Lester was on the tele in Minnesota. He certainly had a “draw you in” manner of delivery/speaking… something about assured certainty that captivates the young, and maybe not so young.

  11. Looked at the timeline in patheos. What an awful history. One of the snippets I noticed on timeline was Rolloff’s successor Bob Willis and wife, Betty, giving children Thorazine. Don’t know the whole story, but Rolloff and successors wanted his abusive treatment of children protected by separation of church and state. If their views are biblical, when is what is biblical become criminal? Rolloff was too extreme for the SBC. In 1956 during a speech at Baylor University he officially left the SBC over denominationalism. Now the IFB has some very real problems with spiritual and sexual abuse and complying with legal standards, but so does the denomination Rolloff left.

  12. Deb –

    Roloff was an interesting(ly misguided IMO) man. The article you linked to at ‘here’ has a lot of information. It was definitely written from a pro Roloff position. The author definitely bought into the good that Roloff was doing and the idea that the state (government) was out to persecute the man of God. There was definitely not concern in the article for the welfare of children who might be trapped in a bad situation/place under the control of Roloff or other men running similar homes. It appears that most of these homes were run by people who had no education in child specialties. Some of the people who ran homes were graduates of the homes. I’m not convinced that this would be a good scenario.

  13. Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    You must be soaking!

    Haha! Took me a few seconds to get this (slow mental day today!). I first thought, “well, it is raining today!” A Mid-Atlantic State is more appropriate.

  14. Signs of a Ravenous Wolf:

    #1- They proclaim loudly how ‘Christian’ they are: which means they are hiding something

    #2- Because they are ‘Christian’ there’s no need for scrutiny, especially from the government: which means they are hiding something really bad

  15. Tina wrote:

    Why did Roloff open the homes to begin with? Was it because he truly wanted to help children at first, or because he wanted control over them?

    In my opinion, it was sexual sadism.

  16. @ Deb:

    I have a feeling that we are learning why he did not want those homes to be licensed. Human chain, my foot!

  17. I have heard of Lester Roloff, but am not familiar with his teachings or his ministry. Sad that there are so many ministers out there who have soooo much baggage attached to them. I live in Georgia (metro Atlanta), and I am amazed how many wacko, for lack of a better phrase, preachers and ministers are out these just in my neck of the woods.

    Oh, and Thin Lizzy rocks too!

  18. Beakerj wrote:

    how is Julie doing? The silence is deafening.

    We cannot talk at this juncture but I can say this. Something really good happened this week. This good thing may result in other good things. As soon as we can talk without causing any problems for the ongoing court issues, we will. But, this week ended on the positive. I wish I could tell you all!

  19. JeffT wrote:

    Signs of a Ravenous Wolf:

    #1- They proclaim loudly how ‘Christian’ they are: which means they are hiding something

    #2- Because they are ‘Christian’ there’s no need for scrutiny, especially from the government: which means they are hiding something really bad

    What I was thinking…..

  20. Nancy wrote:

    Dear goodness. I read the article by Ron Williams on discipline. One word: depravity!

    Indeed. When I read those 6 years ago, it made my queasy. Danni Moss was much like the Deebs in her passion to expose abuse and advocate for victims. I am grateful her family chose to keep the sight up. There is a lot of info in there.

  21. I remember Lester Roloff. A true enigma in many ways.
    Many of his opinions about corporal punishment and strict discipline were common for many people of his generation.

    He was a KJV only guy.

    Had very restrictive views on lifestyles etc.

    His views about separation of church and state present some interesting dilemmas.

    I don’t think his views today regarding homes for wayward youths would be tolerated, even in many Christian circles.

    Inasmuch as he died in 1982, was such a polarizing and well known figure during life, and thousands of girls and boys must have come through his homes, I would be very suspicious of any claims of sexual wrongdoing on his part at this juncture. I would not be disposed to give a lot of credence to claims brought at this time

  22. @ Anonymous:
    Ah, but not all the claims are new. I would respectfully suggest that just because you are only hearing about it now does not mean the claims are only being made now.

    In addition to the above, I would also point out that this is the exact logic used every time someone is caught in sexual misconduct. “They did so much good – helped so many people – why did the victims wait so long to say anything?”

    Just because “thousands of girls and boys must have come through his homes” does not mean abuse did not occur. One of the reasons the authorities investigated and worked to shut down Rebekah House was because of reports of abuse. What kind of credence should have been given to the reports at that time?

  23. When I was a teenager back in the 1970s, I knew a girl who was shipped off to the Rebekah Home for Girls. She came back on furlough or something and told me bluntly that she’d figured out the way to get along was to outpious everyone. It was all a game for her. I wonder what has happened to her.

  24. “Of course, many in his generation were raised on farms and also knew the value of hard work – just sayin’.”

    My late father was raised on a farm in Oklahoma. He turned 18, headed to California and ended up signing up for the Army before he got drafted. When he was old, he told me that the army was a LOT easier than working on the farm (even when getting shot at by the North Koreans) and he never went back to Oklahoma or to a farm to live.

  25. Jeanette:

    I will not be surprised if there are tales of physical abuse related to corporal punishment. Corporal punishment is a matter of record.

    And I will not discount the fact that it’s at these homes and some overseers were abusive.

    I am talking about claims of sexual abuse that might be made against Roloff personally some 33 years later.

    If there were contemporary reports made back during his life against him personally, I am not aware of them. And I think if there had been, given Roloff’s relationship to legal authority, they would have been quick to arrest him.

    I will be interested in reading further.

  26. The San Antonio newspapers (there were two dailies at the time, since merged) had a lot of coverage of Roloff when we lived there from 1985 on. I do not know whether any of that coverage can be accessed on line.

  27. Anonymous wrote:

    I would be very suspicious of any claims of sexual wrongdoing on his part at this juncture. I would not be disposed to give a lot of credence to claims brought at this time

    Why?

  28. @ Anonymous:

    You might find Jeri Massi’s book Schizophrenic Christianity an interesting read.

    http://www.amazon.com/Schizophrenic-Christianity-Christian-Fundamentalism-Sociopaths-ebook/dp/B00LWHS6IS/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1426426255&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=schizophrenic+chrsitianity

    It was that book that convinced me that there has been a great deal of cover up in the IFB when it comes to child abuse.

    I believe the reason that we are now hearing about this stuff is because media is now making it OK to come out of the closet about abuse. Statistics also seem to indicate that only 3-5% of abuse reports are not true. It would seem to me that the smartest move is to take this quite seriously.

  29. @ dee:
    It is not just about Roloff committing abuse but also what he knew and when. Are there people living now who can shed light on those questions? Why would anonymous be concerned with such questions? Another important point is that victims have a right to tell their story even if it is 30 years later as an adult. Yes, it is uncomfortable. We owe it to them to listen.

    JeffT had great insight earlier: Christians are open and transparent.

  30. dee wrote:

    I believe the reason that we are now hearing about this stuff is because media is now making it OK to come out of the closet about abuse.

    Definitely. I also think that some things are called abuse today which would not have been called abuse back in the day. I just checked the Sanford Health website and saw a list of things that they called abuse, and several of them would probably have been considered indecent but not abuse a generation ago and certainly so in my childhood. Not saying they would have been condoned, but the idea of abuse has broadened it seems to me to include more things. I am thinking that some people who would be called abusers today might just have been called dirty old men back in the day.

    Also, and you people know I am 100% opposed to abuse of any kind to anybody, at the same time there is money to made for lawyers and clients in this area-and reputations for lawyers. Encouraging people to take legal action might be a good business move for some.

    I wonder also if some people have been in therapy and the idea of speaking up ‘after all this time’ may come from their therapist, because I gather that is also being recommended by some therapists now?

    And people believe in righteous indignation and people crave justice (well, we don’t ask God to visit justice upon us for our own actions, but you know what I mean.) Righteous indignation can be a good thing and the bible tells us to do justice. So there is that also. Justice delayed has been maligned, but it is better than no justice ever.

    People’s motivations for speaking up now instead of then are probably complicated. Which is to say that something had to change the mind of people who did not speak up before but do now, and I think it is that society has changed, not that these people are lying.

  31. I just wanted to shine a light in this dark corner – this week I got to meet a heroine of mine Camila Batmanghelidjh who started some thing called Kid’s Company in London to work with terribly traumatised kids. Here the lonely, the addicted & the prostitute find love & healing. This is not a Christian work although I’m sure many people of faith work with her. This is their philosophy:http://www.kidsco.org.uk/about-us/our-philosophy
    Now compare that to the reception children got at those Christian homes… it brings tears to my eyes. If I can find the money I’d love to train with them when I finish my Masters’.

  32. @ Nancy: I have a friend who grabbed her little girl’s upper arms to stop her little girl from going into traffic. DHS, a state social service organization ended up investigating her for this. The agency interviewed my friend’s family and called my friends place of employment because of marks on the child’s arms from my friends grabbing the child. And then there is controversy over spanking, I don’t view spanking as abuse, though some may disagree with me.

  33. I find this statement interesting and wonder what Roloff’s definition of “love” was. I saw a man with dietary restrictions, so much so that there were many foods we could not serve in our home, and although I do not remember so much in this part of my life, wouldn’t describe him as particularly loveable.

    Mrs. Roloff wrote,

    “as we began working with these girls,(talking about the Rebekah home) we realized that many of them were unwanted and consequently unloved. Lester said, ‘No wonder children have become embittered and even criminals at an early age. They’ve never seen love in those who gave them birth. The right kind of love would lock and stop the wheels of divorce, delinquency, murder and war and turn this hell on earth into a haven of peace, rest, and joy for these children.”

  34. Mark wrote:

    I have a friend who grabbed her little girl’s upper arms to stop her little girl from going into traffic. DHS, a state social service organization ended up investigating her for this.

    There was a lot of this sort of thing here a few years back. There were even hearings in our state senate over some of the more horrible abuses of CPS. Of course, no one who worked there was responsible because of the Byzantine bureaucratic way things are done. But it is what we have in place to deal with abuses legally. I have some friends who work there who are constantly trying to put things right but fight a losing battle.

  35. In the sermon “Separation of Church and State” he rails against women and government. Speaking of the mayor of Houston at the time who was a woman: ” Houston is beocoming the Sodomite….Can you imagine a woman running a big city like Houston? People say you should be for women, I am for women, but I’m for women getting in their place and staying there.”

    That’s the Lester Roloff I knew and that’s the sermons I remember. Where’s the love again? Where’s the nurturing?

  36. A good Family Court will hold both CPS and the family accountable. Years ago, I consulted with our state’s Family Court as they attempted to improve their handling of child welfare cases. I collected data before and after the changes made and the results were good. The changes included having one judge for the life of the case and providing an attorney for parents who could not afford one. Cases where CPS did not have solid evidence of abuse, neglect, or dependency did not make it past the probable cause hearing or adjudication proceedings.

  37. @ Marsha:

    Thank you for your work on this. So many are quick to jump on one bandwagon or another when we need to look at the issue from all angles. My friends who work for CPS are forever frustrated with the bureaucracy. They tend to get burned out and frustrated.

  38. Debbie Kaufman wrote:

    In the sermon “Separation of Church and State” he rails against women and government. Speaking of the mayor of Houston at the time who was a woman: ” Houston is beocoming the Sodomite….Can you imagine a woman running a big city like Houston? People say you should be for women, I am for women, but I’m for women getting in their place and staying there.”
    That’s the Lester Roloff I knew and that’s the sermons I remember. Where’s the love again? Where’s the nurturing?

    The mayor would have been Kathy Whitmire, who probably was better qualified to run Houston than anyone in the last 100 years. ( She is a CPA and has a Master’s of Accountancy) Didn’t really agree with all her policy issues, but she was more than qualified.

  39. @ Debbie Kaufman: IFB is intentionally outside the mainstream. They have chosen to separate from other evangelicals and have developed a peculiar culture. They take what is viewed as holy and what is sin to a whole other level. And the scary stories of the Pearls discipline manual. And Gothardism..They have separated so far with nothing to moderate possible extremist tendencies in their religious discipline. It is very much also about pastoral authority with different schools at the center, such as BJU, Hyles Anderson, Fairhaven, Crown College. That hate full preacher Anderson on YouTube is IFB and so is Westboro Baptist Church. They aren’t exactly known for their love or for being irenic towards those with whom they disagree. .When children, women, and others are abused it becomes a civil issue, and an abuser can’t hide behind religion. At this point it just isn’t right, and society must intervene for the greater good. Short of government regulation and legislation, Insurance companies might help. Churches will have to pay higher premiums is they are considered a risk for lawsuits for abusive behavior. This might help with these homes? I don’t know……

  40. @ Lydia:
    By the same token, i would assume abuse if i saw bruising like that on a child’s arm, or an adult’s, for that matter.

  41. @ numo:

    The issues on the SanfordHealth site had nothing to do with bruisings. I will give one example of something they listed which I think has changed over the decades. Exhibitionism. They listed this as child abuse. Back then the exhibitionist would have been considered a pervert, but a child would not have been labeled an abused child merely from one exposure to the amazing sight. The child would have likely been told, that man was being ugly, you are okay so don’t worry about it and I better not catch you doing any such thing. The exhibitionist would have been charged with something (public indecency?) and considered a mental case of some sort. They also listed voyerism which I think would have been similar in the way it would likely have been handled. Of the several things listed some would certainly have been considered abuse in the same way they would now. My point is the change in how society categorizes certain behaviors. I was not talking about whether society accepts various behaviors but only how it handles various aberrant behaviors.

  42. Re. “Separation Church and State” – our local IFB only interacts with the local populace at the 4th of July parade – they always have the biggest float, with the men riding on it, and the women in their jean skirts handing out the Chick tracts. At least it’s a short parade route and downhill most of the way! A few weeks ago, my husband told me about one of the sermons the local preacher did (he was listening to their radio station on the way home, just for giggles he said), and the preacher opened by asking the congregation, “As you’re doing your shopping at the [local store], do you wonder how most of the people you encounter are going to hell?” And this is a town where we have 7 churches in town limits (which is perhaps 1 square mile) for about 550 people, and he’s consigning us all to hell! Where’s the love? And with the comments he’s said about women, he probably thinks all the Baptists and Presbyterians are going to hell since they have women pastors! Here, the “Big 3” – Bapt., Pres., and Meth., work together on many projects for the good of our community. Fortunately, most of our town council attends one of the Big 3, so there’s not much IFB influence here. But the fact that they are in our community and on the airwaves with their hate does concern me.

  43. numo wrote:

    @ Lydia:
    By the same token, i would assume abuse if i saw bruising like that on a child’s arm, or an adult’s, for that matter.

    I totally agree and there must be an investigation. The problem is that here the investigation starts with visiting a child’s school without the parents even knowing. They interview the child with no recording or even another party sitting in. There are all sorts of problems with this that vary depending on the childs age, etc.

  44. numo wrote:

    i would assume abuse if i saw bruising like that on a child’s arm, or an adult’s, for that matter

    I would assume that something happened and I would think that possibly an investigation was in order, depending on the age of the child and what story the child told about what happened. I do not think that any investigation of anything should start with the presumption of guilt, however.

    I have one grandchild who has broken various parts of her body (finger, foot, arm.) They do not assume abuse at the local orthopedic practice. They note of what sort the injuries have been, listen to what the child has to say, note that she has a black belt in TKD and then tell us-some kids are “athletic” and these things happen frequently with those kids and they “see it all the time.” Welcome to orthopedics unlimited, I note you have good insurance, have a cup of coffee-well something like that. And truly, this child is not abused by any definition of the concept.

  45. Here is a hesitation I have in the area of the assumption of child abuse, specifically sexual abuse. I have no statistics but I have a case study.

    One of the extended family as a teenager was questioned by the police as to whether he had been a part of a group of teens from their church who had participated in a certain activity as a group with an adult from the church. The certain activity was such that had the teens been doing it all together without the adult there would have been no crime involved, but the presence of the adult changed that. The teen from the extended family denied any knowledge of it. The teens who were involved denied that the teen from the family was involved. The police concluded that the teen from the family knew nothing about it. But his mother would not let it go, and just kept bringing it up-are you sure that so-and-so did not mess with you? Every time the teen did much of anything at all that the mother did not like the mother would bring it up. She basically tormented him with it. Here is what the rest of us think she was ‘saying’ to the boy: You are not perfect and since I know I would have produced a perfect child I am desperately looking for something to blame for your lack of perfection so I think you were messed with and that explains it, if only you would just admit it. That is the assumption of guilt even in the face of no evidence whatsoever, and that is a seriously wrong thing to do to anybody.

  46. There are many who don’t like it being brought up about the shady people Roloff associated himself with. I recommend scrolling down to “The Menge Mystery” and having a little read about how the man who threatened to expose Lester Roloff ended up chopped to bits underneath his very own piece of farm equipment within days of vocalizing that threat:

    http://hwarmstrong.com/ar/AR18.html

  47. This comment is going to be a bit “disjointed.” Once upon a time (maybe 2002?) I had stopped for a break on I-10 in Louisiana. Two vans we had passed a few miles before pulled in behind us. Girls from the vans (wearing similar, long, dresses with their hair up) got out and headed for the restrooms. I struck up a conversation with the driver and it turned out that they were associated with the Roloff enterprise and were going back to the Corpus area to visit families. We went on and they went on. Even at the time I thought that was interesting. Even if I have the date wrong, it was years after the group was “exiled” from Texas.

  48. @ Nancy:
    I once was stuck in an ER (only curtain separated the beds) for many hours. The child in the next bed over had an abusive mother. She clearly was hurting the child when she thought no staff were in earshot (and the place was *very* understaffed), and in between was telling the child very frightening things about what the doctors were going to do to him/her. I was pretty young and just shocked at this, but there literally was nobody to report it to. The child was in for a broken arm or wrist that supposedly happened as the result of a bicycle accident.

    I wonder. (I would have told the doc on duty, but he was extremely creepy and said some crazy/extremely suggestive things to me – I wanted to report *that,* too, but again, there were no nurses around and I thought that if I reported even one of these things, the staff would jump to the defense of the abuser – either the mom or doc, take your pick – and that if I told them about both incidents, they’d think I was making it up).

    It was a very disturbing thing. The mother kept hurting and frightening that child even after she knew I was right next to them.

  49. @ numo:

    What a bad experience. Probably they would have been wary if you had told them both stories. ER is sometimes chaotic and like you said understaffed. And all kinds of situations can end up there. It is really odd about no nurses around. Sounds like it was worse than most bad days in the ER.

  50. @ Nancy:
    I have never, ever been in such an understaffed ER since then, and don’t know what was wrong that day, but it was horrendous. People could have died; there was nobody there to bring a crash cart or get them to an OR. No orderlies, no nothing except for the exceedingly creepy doc – who told me that my complaint of possible pneumonia was an excuse to get an x-ray, which would kill the fetus i was carrying (NOT!!!!!) He was leaning against my upper body when he said this.

    Much later, there was one nurse. And when this doc saw the child next to me, he acted completely normal. Thank God i never had to use *tthat* hospital again!!!

  51. Numo –

    That sounds awful.

    In my personal experience, Drs. ‘can’ be some of the worst abusers of power. (No offense meant Dr. Nancy). I’ve met one too many egomaniac Drs.

  52. @ Bridget:
    It was awful. I was in college and this was the 1st time i ever encountered child abuse, which was *just* beginning to be discussed in the media, etc. I felt so powerless to help in any way at all, and that was scary.

    As for abusive doctors, I’ve met others. I am including general abuses of power in that, but I’ve also met some real creeps who tried to use their work to harass and abuse women.

  53. @ Bridget:
    @ numo:

    You are right about that. And now there is “the system” to deal with. The docs have their backs against the wall about a number of things under the new system (and I mean not just funding but also electronic medical records issues) and poll after poll shows a significant percentage ready to quit as soon as they can. So you take the problem of the ‘bad boys’ and now the problems of ‘the system’ and some aspects of it do not look promising.

    Free medical advice: Everybody get in good health as much as possible–now–while the opportunities are there. Letting things go and then looking for solutions (treatment) later may not be such a good idea.

  54. People say you should be for women, I am for women, but I’m for women getting in their place and staying there.

    LOL. It’s “I’m a feminist, but ______ [insert flagrantly sexist statement]” from 40 years ago!

  55. @ Nancy:

    A dear friend who is a CPA finsihed up a Masters in a special Health Admin program offered in Miami. Out of the 40 accepted, he was the only one NOT a doctor. Why so many doctors? They are convinced the future is in Administration. Not practicing. This does not bode well for our healthy future but then it can’t be good since congress exempted themselves.

  56. @ watching:
    I don’t know the veracity of the claims that Rolloff worked with shady characters, but it doesn’t surprise me. With independent preachers it is all about them, and in they have no one to hold them accountable. This is the upside of “denominational” churches. Persons that also listed as associated with this shady character are diverse independent pastors from the 70’s and 80’s, Jerry Falwell, Kenneth Copeland, and Lester Rolloff. I am not a fan of these modern day Elmer Gantry’s. They may seem more respectable, but really aren’t that different. I would add to this list most SBC mega church pastors. It is all about them, in my opinion.

  57. I used to listen to him on the radio. One broadcast, he let loose a tirade against an airline counter clerk who hadn’t treated him in the manner he thought appropriate. In the course of the tirade, he used the term “Lord have mercy….”. So I wrote him a letter, and said the following: “You said “Lord have mercy”… I know He does, but the real question is: Does Lester Roloff have mercy?” I never heard back.

    Nor did I hear from Jimmy Swaggart after I’d written him, following his taking The Family Worship Center out of the Assemblies of God, rather than submit to their discipline, correction, and restoration.

  58. One of our children is adopted, and had suffered both physical and sexual abuse as an infant.

    I too stand with the abused, but exercise caution in regards to naming abusers. I learned that simply because our child’s history was well documented and had been very news-worthy as far as the media was concerned. When it came time for him to have counseling, he did indeed recover some memories of the abuse. Only thing was, he remembered it as done by people in authority over him who did not come into contact with him until years after the abuse.

    Took a long time for him to realize that if something was done to you at 3 months, someone you met years later could not have done it.

    Recovered memory is a tricky thing. And his shrink told us people can block memories at any age if the trauma is bad enough, and have them resurface years later and “misremembered.”

    Caution, and verify verify verify.

  59. Problem with memory that is retrieved through hypnoticism or suggested by a counselor is that it isn’t always accurate. There is such a thing as a therapist planting false memories.

    http://faculty.washington.edu/eloftus/Articles/sciam.htm

    I remember the Rutherford case where a therapist planted false memories into Beth Rutherford regarding her father, an Assemblies of God pastor. It devastated Beth’s family and destroyed her father who hadn’t committed these heinous crimes. There are lawsuits on the books of this happening, including the Rutherfords lawsuit against a Tulsa Oklahoma church.

  60. Mark–you are so correct about recovered memories. Which is why we opted against hypnotism and drug induced recovery of them for our son. He didn’t “remember” as much, true, but what he did remember had for the most part actually happened. There was some mix of things he had seen on tv and in movies that had to be weeded out as therapy progressed. Fortunately for some of his teachers, etc, there was ample proof what he remembered HAD happened to him, but also ample documentation of WHO had done it. That meant that if you are raped at 3 months old someone you don’t meet until you are 7, 1100 miles away, did not do it. And great caution had to be used to make sure there was not continuing abuse occurring.

    I’m not suggesting Lester Roloff is not guilty of abusing these girls. I am saying that there is cause for concern whenever abuse is reported years later than it happened. Doesn’t mean it did not happen, just that caution and careful investigation are needed.

    And when there are multiple reports on one person, we have to consider that they are guilty, or that that they are not guilty and being ramrodded by those with an ax to grind, or that one person has misplaced memories and others with that ax to grind are piling on and making stuff up.

    It happens– all three scenarios happen. We never want to discount the stories told by the victims, but at the same time we absolutely must consider they can be misguided or telling lies, either one.

    Which is why sometimes those with legitimate claims of abuse suffer through long court cases. Not saying they didn’t happen, or that the abuser should go free. Just taking the often painful time to make sure.

  61. @ linda:

    First of all, it is well known that only about 4% of claims are false and most of those are involved in divorce proceedings. Therefore, I tend to believe the victims.

    Secondly, there was a reason the house got shut down-probably not due to *recovered* memories.

  62. linda wrote:

    he did indeed recover some memories of the abuse. Only thing was, he remembered it as done by people in authority over him who did not come into contact with him until years after the abuse.

    Took a long time for him to realize that if something was done to you at 3 months, someone you met years later could not have done it.

    3 months? Did you mean 3 years or something else?

  63. GuyBehindtheCurtain–no, I meant 3 months. Children in our country can truly be horrifically abused.

    Dee–you will notice I did not say the homes should have been shut down. I only addressed the idea that sometimes late reporting of abuse means a very slow process to verify. Which is as it should be.

    I see no problem with that. After what our son endured, I want the sorry hides of abusers nailed to the barn door. But, knowing what he went through in counseling and recovering from his abuse, means I also understand the slow process.

    If ONLY 4% of abuse claims are proven false–whether from malice or from false memories or whatever–that is still people who may have their lives, families, careers, and reputations destroyed when they are entirely innocent.

    So while some want mob justice administered quickly, I want the time taken to be very sure and then blast them.

  64. linda wrote:

    GuyBehindtheCurtain–no, I meant 3 months. Children in our country can truly be horrifically abused.

    Are you saying memories from 3 month old child can be resurrected?

  65. Memories for children that young often surface more as impressions or bits and pieces from what we experienced with our son. He has a host of mental and physical conditions compounded by ptsd from near fatal abuse before the age of 3 months, with home removal at that point.

    You could be having a wonderful day with him, maybe take him to a park. Someone could walk by and the mood instantly shift to him being angry, aggressive, and totally out of control. Total meltdown. Eventually with good help we began to learn he might have noticed a smell–maybe their shampoo or detergent was the same smell as his perp. Maybe a tone of voice set him off, or a particular shade of blue on their clothing. With a good shrink they can begin to figure out what their trigger was that frightened them and brought out their defense mechanisms. We knew what had happened to him. Over time he began to see in his own behavior his re-enacting it. At that point, some vague bits and pieces, but then he decided he had been “plucked from the very pits of hell” and didn’t want to remember more. He needs to face it, and is struggling by repressing it again, but I can’t say I blame him either. It is a conundrum–he can’t cope without facing it and can’t cope with facing it.

    Part of his treatment as a teen involved state run residential treatment. It soon became apparent that he really had been abused (we knew that from the court records), that he was very open that he could get staff in trouble if he accused them of abuse, and that he had difficulty staying in reality.

    I’m very confident his center was a good one and he was not abused. But I can easily see that if staff had abused him, staff would have a ready alibi. I can see that if they had not abused him but did others, he might pile on either intentionally or not being able to stay in reality. That might provide their defense counsel with an alibi. And I have to admit that if he thought he could get a settlement he might falsely accuse them.

    Rough situation all around for him.

  66. Bennett Willis wrote:

    This comment is going to be a bit “disjointed.” Once upon a time (maybe 2002?) I had stopped for a break on I-10 in Louisiana. Two vans we had passed a few miles before pulled in behind us. Girls from the vans (wearing similar, long, dresses with their hair up) got out and headed for the restrooms. I struck up a conversation with the driver and it turned out that they were associated with the Roloff enterprise and were going back to the Corpus area to visit families. We went on and they went on. Even at the time I thought that was interesting. Even if I have the date wrong, it was years after the group was “exiled” from Texas.

    Thelma Ford herself, while testifying under oath in a 1997 deposition stated that the girls from the Rebekah Home were actually boarded at New Bethany while waiting for certain legislation to pass in Texas so Roloff could bring them all back from Missouri.

  67. GuyBehindtheCurtain wrote:

    Are you saying memories from 3 month old child can be resurrected?

    This is a history of doing surgery on infants without anesthesia under two ideas: that infants do not feel pain (wrong) and that infants do not remember (debated and discussed as to just what that means.) Also pain meds were withheld sometimes even in cases of severe pain (burns for example) under the same theories. The parents were not informed that the surgery on the infant would be without anesthesia, for the most part. Ideas in this area have changed during my lifetime.

  68. Thanks Nancy.

    And yes, memories are still there even for very young infants. They may not can ever articulate exactly what was done to them the way an older teen can later remember.

    But they can recover bits–things like “the man who hurt me smelled like that cigar. The lady used to rock me in a pink chair. I’ve heard that voice before and when I heard it I was hurt badly.” That sort of thing.

    I’ve had medical procedures done on myself–routine minor surgical things–where the doc needed me awake and aware. So instead of meds to put me under, they used an amnesiac so I wouldn’t remember.

    Next time I had to have the procedure done, remembering absolutely nothing of the first time, they had to use a LOT of pain meds to overcome my panic attack that literally had my insides tied in knots of fear. Couldn’t get near the surgical site without the pain meds as I would twist nearly off the table even while heavily sedated.