An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy. Rudyard Kipling link
link
This is the first stab at writing short posts to keep our readers up to date on stories that we have been following. Deb will be posting later this evening.
Raw Story reported. Ohio church ordered teen to apologize to youth pastor’s wife after he raped her, mom says. Here are the specifics from the article.
1. This occurred at Columbia Road Baptist Church in North Olmsted, Ohio.
The church does not appear to be affiliated with Thw Gospel Coalition. The church posted this *brave* statement on their website.
2. The youth pastor, a married father of 3, began texting the 16 year old female teen, complaining about his marriage.
3. The church allegedly heard about this and asked him to stop, which he did for awhile.
4. He started up the relationship again and this time engaged in sexual acts with the same teen in August 2015.
5. The church allegedly learned about this in November 2015, spoke to Mitchell and reported it to the police.
6. Mitchell was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
The two things that jumped out at me.
1. The mother claimed the church wanted her daughter to apologize to the youth pastor's wife.
The girl’s mother testified during the sentencing hearing that church leaders also told the family not to come back to church until her daughter had apologized to Mitchell’s wife.
The family stopped going to the church, and Mitchell’s attorney said he had not heard that until the hearing.
2. The youth pastor said that there was love involved in this relationship and the judge told him he was delusional
“Your delusional excuse — that there were emotions and love involved — is troubling,” said Judge Patrick Corrigan. “That’s extremely delusional.”
Smart judge. Delusional predator. Despicable church if they asked the teen to apologize as claimed and they ain't talking.
Wish that I wasn’t the first to read this terrible travesty, but there it is.
If the church indeed heard about him texting her to start with he should have been seeking different employment THEN.
That church’s statement of belief includes this:
“We believe that the local church is the agency through which God has chosen to accomplish His work in the world”
I suspect this sentence would be more truthful if they removed the word ‘God’ from it and put in ‘the evil one’ as regards the church’s involvement in the abuse of this girl, as a church.
A lot of these man-made entities that call themselves ‘churches’ are following some old entrenched concepts rooted in misogyny, and are certainly not operating at the level of a Christian faith community when that whole church adopts an attitude towards a victim of abuse that blames the victim.
Based on the info above, action should have been taken with the inappropriate texts. A police report should have been filed & a restraining order obtained.
It is NEVER normal for an adult to text your child. Communication should go through the parents. Once again we get an insight of how these closed communities become predator hunting grounds.
The church’s ‘PureMen’ ministry is run by an ACBC (nouthetic) certified ‘biblical counselor’:
http://columbiaroad.org/puremen/
@ bunny:
Yep!
@ Jerome:
Good pickup.
I dont get these people did they get in line twice when stupid was being handed out?
brian wrote:
More like three or four times!!
At least this Mom had the sense to get her daughter out of this place. Yea Mom!!
Posted an update in the open discussion thread. Thank you.
http://thewartburgwatch.com/open
Is this sort of like apologizing to someone because you hit their fist with your eye?
Found this statement on the CRBC webpage under “Get Help”:
“Without question, there is hope! God is the One who created marriage. His plan for marriage (as detailed in the Word of God) is both perfect and timeless. When properly applied to the marriage relationship, His principles will not fail! PERIOD! We have trained counselors at CRBC who can assist you in applying these biblical principles”
Uhm, combine this with nouthetic counseling …. Oh, brother! Females stay away! We are chattel!
Jerome wrote:
Really??? What were they doing when this youth pastor was texting the minor female? Why didn’t they stop him? Oh, I forgot ….. women and other people’s children don’t really matter, do we?
In one article I read, the church leaders claimed that there was a misunderstanding about the demanded apology. But, if anyone had questions, they would only discuss it “face to face” and not through media or emails!
May some fellow prisoner take a special liking to the youth pastor!
I’m beginning to believe that a frightening number of men claim that they are called to ministry just so they can have easy access to women and children.
bunny wrote:
Exactly!
brian wrote:
That made me giggle.
Didn’t someone on here note a church that shunned the teen victims of a sexual abuser? This is just like that, and just like how in many countries in the Middle East, it’s the victim that goes to jail, or worse. I just can’t wrap my head around that mentality. Are churches like these so into the “male is superior” mentality that they automatically blame the victim?
The report on Raw Story said Mitchell was a youth pastor who served as a volunteer. I’ve never heard of a volunteer pastor but wonder if he was formally ordained and if so, why wasn’t he hired by the church to serve in that capacity. Did Mitchell specifically volunteer to work with young people and if so, I would hope he had valid credentials to be called pastor.
If I sound confused it’s because I am. This sounds strange to me.
Another article that has a few more details
http://www.christianpost.com/news/after-rape-by-well-liked-youth-pastor-church-allegedly-wanted-teen-victim-to-apologize-for-betraying-his-wife-mom-claims-169361/
makes it sound like it was the youth pastor’s wife that wanted the apology. But now that it’s out in public, nobody seems to want to take responsibility for the request for an apology. Maybe they’ve realized how embarrassing the idea is now they are outside of their own bubble.
Victorious wrote:
I’m confused, too, now that you bring it up. I’ve had friends who served as youth group leaders as volunteers but that is a different thing, right? Or, is it? What exactly does a youth pastor do beyond what a youth group leader does?
siteseer wrote:
Maybe the wife was in denial and thought that the relationship was consensual? But still…
RANK HATH ITS PRIVILEGES.
siteseer wrote:
A lot of smaller churches have volunteer youth leaders or pastors. Some are bivocational, some just lead because nobody else will. The church claimed to have a thorough vetting process.
When I was a youth leader though, under a (paid) youth pastor, most of the leaders were parents. We all led smaller groups of age-level students during discussion time each week. Males led males, and females led females. Everyone had a background check, and doors were always open.
I always told the girls in my group that they could tell their parents or friends anything I said or did, but to be respectful of the privacy of the other girls.
Nancy2 wrote:
For “Your word against God’s Anointed’s” Plausible Deniability.
Russian/Soviet Bureaucratic tradition: NEVER put anything in writing. If nothing’s written down, It Never Happened and You Can’t Ever Prove It Did, So There!
Nancy2 wrote:
Where there’s easy prey, the predators will swarm.
FEEDING FRENZY!
Nancy2 wrote:
I think you are right. They must believe they can also get away with any abuse and sadly most of the time they do.
Is this anything like the classic pickup line “My wife, she don’ understand me”?
Sounds like an Independent Fundamental Baptist church on their “What We Believe” website page. They are KJV-Onlyists, so they would mix well with ESV-Onlyists.
Also on that page, they discourage members from seeking legal means to resolve church “disputes”: “We believe that Christians are prohibited from bringing civil lawsuits against other Christians or the church to resolve personal disputes. We believe the church possesses all the resources necessary to resolve personal disputes between members.”
Of course, rape of a child by a pastor goes far beyond “personal dispute”. The church does not have any resources to bring to the table to resolve such crimes. Call 911.
Max wrote:
Whoops meant to say “… they would NOT mix will with ESV-Onlyists.”
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
Well, Voddie Baucham does teach that real men do gravitate towards young females just as they did in ‘Biblical’ times…
I am very glad the mother has the sense and strength to get out and not be fooled by them. God grant her continued strength and courage and resouraces / support.
I have seem so much of this sort of thing I am getting a little numb to it, I think. Which is not a good thing, I think.
Based on observation and personal experience, the predators tend to flock together and cover eachother’s backsides. Kind of a ‘I know what you’re up to and you know what I’m up to, so if you rat me out, I’ll rat you out, but if you give me cover, I’ll give you cover.’
When I got out of my former cultish church, piece by piece, I began to discover that ALL the senior male leadership were sexually abusive / manipulative / deviant. Where crimes in progress were suspected, I called the police and child protective services to start a file.
Ugh. I am beginning to wonder if this issue is more the norm in churches or if I have just had bad luck in the variety of churches I have encountered.
This BS really does damage people’s faith.
Jesus have mercy on the victims.
Jeannette Altes wrote:
I’m starting to wonder, too. Yes, it sure does.
Max wrote:
Maybe the KJV-Onlyists will be tempted from their KJV position by the ESV’s Gen 3:16 translation… time will tell!
Seriously, what alternate universe did we enter into where churches become predators? I’m sorry but the church that told her to do that might as well have held this girl down while he raped her!!!! It’s more than delusional it’s wicked!!!!!! and it’s no different then what was done to Billy. These people are more concerned about their little so called kingdoms and not about Christ or His church!!!
siteseer wrote:
Well, an abundance of teens (vulnerable) + an entitlement mentality by some/several + females having a lower status = a corrupt culture
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
I overheard two women one day while in line at the pharmacy, and one told the other that the boy/girls club people had told her that pedophiles were targeting churches because of the large numbers of children and teens. You know, even with churches that have a rule that no one adult can be alone with a child, I’d say to make it even more than two because I can see some predators working in pairs.
Muff Potter wrote:
A bit more than that.
“And that’s why God sends him daughters.”
— Voddie or Craster?
http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/Craster
marquis wrote:
There are times when ‘the outside world’ seems more moral and sane than the entities that are turning into ‘cults’. That is a horrible thing to realize, but just look at how women are making progress in the ‘real’ world and compare that to the plight of a woman in a quiver-full patristic male-headship, wife-spanking, silenced-women ‘church’.
A woman is that kind of ‘church’ would fare better in ‘the world’ than to stay in a so-called ‘biblical’ entity and be belittled, disrespected, and abused, even in front of her own children.
Not a fan of the way ‘the world’ treats women, but the clock is ticking on the male-dominance bull $*^&, and for the sake of single mothers AND their children AND our daughters and granddaughters, it can’t happen soon enough. I have photos of my niece in full military gear AND in her formal evening dress with diamond clips in her hair playing a concerto . . . . she looks absolutely magnificent in each of the pictures, and she knows it 🙂
What is both sad & funny is that during my 15 years as a church youth worker I specifically told our young women that if a married man starts talking to you about his wife or marriage in a negative way, the correct response was ‘I’m sorry to hear that but she’s the one you need to be talking to about this’, & then excuse themselves & tell an adult they trusted. Some things are just perennial problems it seems.
bunny wrote:
Yes! These churches are so unbelievably dumb.
Good judge.
@ Beakerj:
Perfect!
Nancy2 wrote:
Nancy, this didn’t even work in biblical times. I mean, unless you’re going ‘no true scotsman’ on them, which is cheating.
Nancy2 wrote:
I mean. Funny how relationships seem to ‘work’ when you don’t care what one party thinks or feels as long as they obey you like a slave.
@ siteseer:
OK, according to that article “”No one in our congregation had the least misgiving about him as far as he had prior conduct that raised alarms. ”
Does this include texting 16 year olds about his marriage??? They didn’t have any misgivings about that??
Patriciamc wrote:
The pastor is trying to say this didn’t happen and then he says “When asked if Mitchell’s wife felt betrayed by the teen, he declined to comment on what she was feeling but said: “I can tell you we were all very surprised. We were all very grieved, we all felt very betrayed.” He also says the wife thought they should make ‘amends’. Coupled with feeling betrayed, who do you think they wanted to apologize? If she wanted to apologize for her husband she could have done so.
That doesn’t sound like a ‘willful’ misunderstanding. It sounds exactly as reported.
Patriciamc wrote:
It was my former IFB church. The perv is serving 7 years. The twin victims were brought up in front of the church and publicly church disciplined, then the entire church shunned them for 3 months. No one talked to them and they couldn’t participate in anything. Just sitting quietly by their parents that’s it. They never got counseling.
“We have a pretty rigorous process that we put all of our workers through especially any of our workers who are going to work with children or youth. We run background checks, we also have an interview process that we go through that asks some pretty poignant questions about whether there are issues going on in the lives of the people” like sexual immorality or pornography.
“I guess the difficulty with Brian was that there have been no prior incident that would have ever come up on a background report. He has a very good recommendation from the previous church that he worked at…He married into a family that has been in our church for four generations. There was just no red flag that came up in our process,” said Giallourakis.
Read more at http://www.christianpost.com/news/after-rape-by-well-liked-youth-pastor-church-allegedly-wanted-teen-victim-to-apologize-for-betraying-his-wife-mom-claims-169361/#TkzRGCqeK5YqSoAL.99
This is what I find most disconcerting about situations such as this one. The predators who have so far not been caught, and have no legal record. The predators who don’t think twice about lying during an interview for the position. Sure, there were some red flags the church and perhaps the girl’s parents should have noticed–like Mitchell giving her solo rides home, sending her flowers on her birthday, the previous texting behavior that should have gotten him booted out right then. A guy repeatedly complaining about his marriage to an unrelated woman is a problem, never mind a teenage girl.
Background checks and the like are good as far as they go, but I think churches need an additional two-pronged approach: age appropriate education for children on what things are inappropriate and to watch out for, and education for all the adults on what predator behaviors to watch out for, both in adults and minors who sexually abuse, as well as signs of abuse in victims and how to respond. In other words, predator-proof the church as far as is possible. Otherwise, I don’t see how to protect our kids and still fellowship in person with other believers.
siteseer wrote:
If this is true, then I would say both Mitchells have a sense of entitlement.
Lea wrote:
I’m sure slavery in the U.S. would have worked out just fine and we could have avoided the civil was if only God’s principles had been applied. (Sarcasm off)
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
It’s gotta’ be a hard-wiring thing, hard-wiring to ensure that one’s own genetic progeny survives and not the other guy’s. In my view, the ‘good news’ brought by Messiah, is that it does not have to be this way anymore. We have full power and wherewithal to override all those old templates. The choice is ours.
I fear a cage wrote:
It breaks my heart to think of those girls cut off like that. I would think the pain of that rejection is ongoing, even after the 3 months have passed.
There’s some information and resources on shunning online but not as much as there should be.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110510151216.htm
http://wyso.org/post/religious-shunning-and-survival
Patriciamc wrote:
Apparently the age of consent in Ohio is 16, so this is not automatically statutory rape. HOWEVER, there are the problems of age difference, his marital status and position of trust, the fact that he apparently initiated contact, etc., etc.
Teens–boys and girls alike–are emotionally vulnerable. Everything is new, they have strong feelings, and they do not think in concrete ways. Even the most jaded teens I know are innocent of the world and its ways: they might know how to get some beer, but they don’t read adults very well and don’t expect to be taken advantage of. Their instincts for self protection are just not well developed.
It’s a disastrous idea for adults to turn off critical thinking in church, and even worse when we teach our children to trust and obey every grownup in a church.
Teens need loving adults, ideally parents, who pay steady attention to them, who observe closely without leaping to wrong conclusions, who listen and protect while helping them inch toward freedom and responsibility. They do best when the inner voice shaping their decisions is the conscience. And the conscience is awakened when parents offer selfless love and clear-eyed understanding.
Friend wrote:
should be “they do not think in abstract ways”
Friend wrote:
Didn’t he begin grooming her while she was only 15? As a predator he probably was waiting for her to reach the age of consent, but he started preparing her before that time.
Burwell wrote:
If there’s a court case, that should be vigorously discussed.
But of course the church should have policies that far exceed the letter of state law.
siteseer wrote:
I worry about them all the time. They’re fixing to turn 18 and leave home and I’m afraid they’re still victim material for unhealthy relationships due to their never getting counseling. They’ll be going to a well known IFB all ripe for some preacher boy creep.
*ifb bible college
I fear a cage wrote:
Ah, yes, I can understand your feelings.
Have you ever read through the posts on http://stufffundieslike.com/? Having some IFB in my background, I found that site so healing and freeing. It’s not active anymore but the posts are still up. Lots of posts about IFB college on there.
I fear a cage wrote:
The situation isn’t funny, but this turn of phrase is! Ew.
I hope they manage to get some help somewhere…
siteseer wrote:
SFL was instrumental to my journey of healing from being raised IFB. love that site.
I know that in today’s society that 15 and 16 year old girls can dress and act very provacative. But that doesn’t excuse this minister. He had no business texting this young girl in the first place. That’s what the young crowd does all the time. But he was married with 3 kids and should have been the one acting like an adult. A teenager doesn’t know what they are getting into. Some girls would think it’s neat that a married man pays attention to them. It’s not. Marriage is a vow made before God. When will these men learn. I’m not saying it was the girl’s fault, far from it. Yes, he probably did start grooming her at the age of 16. Makes me sick.
NJ wrote:
He might have passed a background check, but the “right-now checks” were screaming for attention. Somebody surely noted his problems and should have addressed them … like the senior pastor!
Jack wrote:
I agree. It is NEVER appropriate for adult male to text a teen girl. This happened to my child at church and this man even became a pastor at my church. I can’t tell you how much this still bothers me to this day. She was 14 and he was 40 something. When I found out, I let him know my disapproval by almost knocking the doors to the fellowship hall off their hinges. He never text her again after that….but he still to this day will text my husband and tattle on my children for things he thinks are wrong. I should of said more, but I was afraid I would’ve been considered a gossip. He was a key player in splitting our church and he is gone. I’m so glad …cause he makes my skin crawl.
Nancy2 wrote:
You meant that as a snark, but PASTOR Jerk with the Kirk in Moscow Idaho has claimed that FOR REAL. And I think Got Hard also made noises along the same lines.
Watchman on the Wall wrote:
Sounds like a BAD case of arrested development, personality stuck at the same age as your kids.
And I read somewhere about sexual attraction to those the same physical age as your own emotional age…
Max wrote:
“These two PASTORs said one to another:
PASTOR unto PASTOR o’er the world is Brother…”
— filk of Chesterton’s “Ballad of the Battle of Gibeon”
And like the guy in the rainbow fright wig with the “John 3:16” sign, he may have done all the Right Things and mouthed all the Right Words (and Souls Were Being Saved) that nobody noticed he was losing it until everything blew sky-high.
From the Original Post: This is the first stab at writing short posts to keep our readers up to date on stories that we have been following
I like this new addition. Even though so many posts in the week looks a bit daunting, I like it because the comments are more spread out among the posts and the posts are less likely to have 500 comments to sift through. It’s easier for those of us with less Internet time to specialize on the topics and issues we still want to be involved with.