It’s Clergy Sex Abuse; Not an Affair!

You can recognize survivors of abuse by their courage. When silence is so very inviting, they step forward and share their truth so others know they aren't alone.”  Jeanne McElvaney link

http://www.christianpost.com/news/tullian-tchividjian-reveals-he-planned-to-kill-himself-after-losing-ministry-over-affair-scandal-170182/
Tullian Tchividjian link

As information is emerging on Tullian Tchividjian and his sexual relationships with women he met through his ministry, a Twitter disagreement arose this past weekend on what is involved in such a relationship. On one side were those who claimed that a sexual relationship between a pastor and a congregant is simply two consenting adults engaging in an affair.

On the other side, there were those who asserted that such a relationship is far move complex that a consenting a relationship between two adults. In fact, a pastor initiating such a sexual encounter is guilty of clergy sex abuse. 

I am in the latter camp. A pastor holds a position of power in the relationship and is misusing the power differential to gratify himself at the expense of a parishioner who comes to him for spiritual advice or counseling.

Here is what the American Counseling Association has to say about the ethics of a sexual relationship between a counselor and a client. Surely the church should agree with such ethics.

 The 2005 ACA Code of Ethics continues to recognize the harm that can be impacted upon clients when they are sexually intimate with their counselor. The counseling relationship is one based on trust, so we must respect the power differential inherent in any counseling relationship regardless of the counselor’s theoretical orientation or perspective. Engaging in any type of sexual or intimate relationship with a current client is abuse of power. Clients come into counseling emotionally and psychologically vulnerable and in need of assistance, so a counselor trying to engage in such relationships would be trying to take advantage of that client and their vulnerabilities to meet their own needs. Relational/cultural theory frames this as striving for a “power with” instead of a “power over” relationship.

Have you heard about the Clergy Sexual Abuse Awareness & Prevention Campaign? I hadn't until @kimrung2 posted, on Twitter, the video at the end of this post. Hope for Survivors an organization dedicated to helping the victims of clergy sex abuse. By this, I mean adults who have been coerced into a sexual relationship with their pastors. They have many resources along with videos by those who have been harmed by pastors.

Here is a video of a brave woman who describes her sexual relationship with her pastor. I think she does a good job of demonstrating why this is a coercive relationship between a pastor and a vulnerable church member.

Comments

It’s Clergy Sex Abuse; Not an Affair! — 813 Comments

  1. Ed Chapman wrote:

    Nope! I don’t care how it is viewed by women.

    And that, in a nutshell, is why you’re facing so much pushback here.

    Doctrine Over Person.

  2. Daisy wrote:

    (Some churches teach that the Bible invests preachers with authority and brainwash their members into believing this.)

    I fear that Ed’s neat-and-tidy solution would be, “Just don’t go to those churches!”

  3. Ed Chapman wrote:

    If we all follow the behavior of what the Apostle Paul laid out, we won’t have any problems.

    Ed, what good is that advice?

    If we all always did everything right, we wouldn’t have any problems.

    No kidding? Why didn’t we all realize this sooner?

    If we all just “followed the behavior of what the Apostle Paul laid out,” if we all just understood a few facts and laws, then these things wouldn’t happen, or if they do happen it wouldn’t matter because it wouldn’t affect us- we’d just move a mile down the road and get the victory!

    If we could all just follow the law perfectly, we’d have none of these messy, confusing human problems. If only we’d all realized this sooner!

    Sheesh.

  4. Ed Chapman wrote:

    Rape, molestation is a crime for everyone, not just clergy. Rape, molestation, and adultery is a sin for every Christian, not just pastors.

    Yes, but sex is sometimes coerced from victims under different means.

    Not just by brute force.

    Different sexual predators use different techniques to get into someone’s pants.

  5. refugee wrote:

    I fear that Ed’s neat-and-tidy solution would be, “Just don’t go to those churches!”

    Oh, really?, wow.

    Sorry, I have not yet caught up to all the posts in this thread since I was last here last night, so I”ve not yet seen his newest posts.
    I also missed some of the posts from the day before, too.

    I really did not mean to come back to participate on this thread or the one at Julie Anne’s blog again, but I got wrapped up again anyway. 🙂

  6. Ed Chapman wrote:

    A lack of empathy? Are you kidding? Prove to me that there are victims in this case of TT having sex with congregants.

    Empathy means being able to put yourself in the shoes of the other person and experience what they are experiencing. You don’t express anything near that in any of your comments.

    And, sorry, but who are you that anyone should have to prove they have been victimized to you?

  7. refugee wrote:

    But the way this situation is set up, the *only* way for them to return to the fold, to get the shunning lifted, to be welcomed back into their social circle, is to deny there was ever a problem in the first place, to deny that the issues that caused them to be put out of the church never happened, to assume all blame and all responsibility for putting things right

    Which means in many cases it’s the strong who refuse to backdown who end up getting kicked out. Like Karen hinkley who refused to cede control of her brain and her decisions to the village church.

  8. siteseer wrote:

    If we all always did everything right, we wouldn’t have any problems.

    No kidding? Why didn’t we all realize this sooner?

    It’s not even true. You can do everything right and still be hurt by other around you.

  9. Ken G wrote:

    Ed Chapman wrote:
    No, I don’t get offended that easily. It’s just been super overwhelming with all of the Ed Bashing that I have been experiencing these last few days.
    There is Ed Bashing because you need to get with the program espoused on this blog. Remember, women are always victims because they were vulnerable, tricked, were emotionally distraught, not thinking clearly, etc. Even if the act was consentual, the woman can later change her mind and claim it wasn’t. Once you grasp these principles, the ED Bashing will cease.

    Ken, I’m not sure I’m understanding you correctly. It sounds like you’re disparaging the discussion here at TWW, by saying that commenters must fit the paradigm that all women are victims, and there are always excuses that they can call on, and they have no responsibility for their actions, and even if they’re not victims, they can claim to be victims and we have no choice but to believe them.

    I don’t think that’s the case at all.

    For one thing, I have read and empathized with a number of comments from *men* who were deeply wounded by spiritual abuse. I have been heartened to see the progression of their healing, and encouraged by them sharing the lessons they are learning.

    And I think Ed is getting pushback on the TT thing because he insists that none of the women TT seduced were victims, because he had no power over them, they were all equal, and so they are equally to blame. (He basically said so in his “Prove it!” statement.)

    I’m not so sure of that.

    But then, we live in a culture where, for a long time, people have been blamed for the bad things that happened to them. Even little children have been blamed for seducing grown men into raping them.

    I’m sure if we could follow every rule laid down by God and nature, our lives would be perfect. Wouldn’t they? Nobody would die, I guess. Nobody would be fat from overeating. There would be no cancer or heart disease or arthritis, if we just ate all the right things, and exercised. There would be no rape if women would just stop wearing those darned skimpy clothes! (Wait a minute. Apparently rape is a problem in countries where women must wear Burkas. Hmm. Something doesn’t add up.)

    There have been false accusations, as well, in various cases, but where real harm *has* been done, let’s not equally blame the prey for the predators’ choices. Let’s not revictimize the victims by telling them that they were not victims, that they could have prevented the bad things from happening if they’d just acted differently.

    Fat lot of good that does them.

  10. Ed Chapman wrote:

    Oh, I forgot…Old outdated Mosiac law!

    I don’t want to derail the topic from CSA to get into this, but at least in passing, I wanted to say that sometimes Christians can and do misapply rules and laws from the Old Testament. They try to apply OT rules and standards to Christians today that don’t really fit.

    Even the Pharisees in the day of Jesus did this. They would misapply OT rules, regulations, twist them, or add more on to them.

    Jesus had to correct them on it multiple times.

    Not everything from the OT or even the NT can be neatly mapped to the United States in the year 2016, nor do I think everything can and should be mapped to contemporary life, because it ends up creating burdens on people, something God did not intend.

    That is one reason why I take issue with how frequently you jump to applying Old Testament rules and laws to people.

    I’m not saying the OT is totally irrelevant, but IMO, it must be handled very carefully, because many people have abused it or misapplied its concepts, which in turn has hurt people both back in Jesus’ day and in ours.

    There seems to be more an emphasis on law than grace with people who love to quote from the Old Testament; it’s almost as though OT-quoters do not even realize that Jesus came, died on the cross, was raised again, and bestowed grace.

    OTOH, we have some Christians who abuse grace to sin every other minute (like Tullian) but then say two seconds later, “That’s OK, because GRACE!! Wheee!”

    So, I’m not a fan of either side -the super legalistic OT stuff of the “live anyway you want to because extreme Grace” teaching.

  11. Friend wrote:

    Ed Chapman wrote:

    Secular settings, it’s a “free for all”, anything goes, within the bounds of the law of the land.

    Just noticed this. Secular settings are not a free-for-all within the bounds of the law of the land. Many workplaces, schools, hospitals, volunteer organizations, etc., have rules about conduct that are more strict than the law.

    I mention this not to quibble with you, but because we Christians have a common misconception that the rest of the world has no standards, no rules, and no values. Some Christians assume that non-Christians are just a bunch of promiscuous druggies. Not a helpful perspective.

    We in the Christian world do not need all those extra biblical rules and regulations. So, I disagree with the comparison. Every rule and regulation that is set up for those institutions are in “Love they neighbor as thyself, and Love God with all your mind heart and soul.” And the bible really does tell us what love looks like. But I don’t see much bible quoting going on, and I get slammed by many for bible quoting, showing me that they could care less at what the Bible has to say on the subject.

    Ed

  12. Ed Chapman wrote:

    But I don’t see much bible quoting going on, and I get slammed by many for bible quoting, showing me that they could care less at what the Bible has to say on the subject.

    Actually, I think it’s people like TT who couldn’t care less about applying the bible to their own actions.

    They don’t seem to have any problem with using the bible as a weapon to lay heavy burdens on others, however.

  13. Daisy wrote:

    That is one reason why I take issue with how frequently you jump to applying Old Testament rules and laws to people.

    Daisy,

    For the love of God, and peace with you, I mention OT stuff ONLY for the purpose of a reference, because the NT epistles tell us what sin is defined as.

    1 John 3:4
    sin is the transgression of the law.

    That’s the OT for those who don’t know.

    Romans 3:20
    the law is the knowledge of sin

    Romans 7:7 (Paul talking…you know, the lawyer)
    I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.

    Ed

  14. Ed Chapman wrote:

    Then go to another church! Do not consider that as power that they really don’t have. Dust your feet and go a mile up the road to a different church.

    My goodness.

    Your allegiance is to God, not the pastor. Your conscience is with God, not the pastor.

    If my pastor kicked me out of the church like that, I would thank God that he got me out of there, considering it a blessing. Stop being the victim and be the victory!

    Ed, your take on these subjects does nothing to help people who have already been victimized by a church or pastor.

    As Lea has pointed out to you several times, most of us here are dealing with life as IT IS not how we think it SHOULD BE.

    Would it be great if Christians every where realized that their pastor does not have formal authority over them? Yes.

    And that realization might cut down on some of the pastoral abuse we see, but,

    The FACT REMAINS a lot of people still do conceive of pastors as being trustworthy friends, allies or authority figures.

    As long as that continues, it will be easy for unscrupulous pastors to exploit church members.

    I still marvel and wonder at why so many sweet little elderly women keep sending their checks to the swindlers on TV who call themselves “tele-evangelists” but it is what it is.

    It’s frustrating, but it keeps happening, maybe for the same reason lonely women keep falling for the Nigeran scam, where some guy dates them online and asks them to send a cashier’s check.

    Jesus said “the poor shall be with you always.”

    I think it’s just as accurate to say, “The con artist religious leaders shall be with you always, and there will always be naive people who fall for their scams.”

    You want to punish the victims, though.

    It’s as though you’re wanting to blame those who are hurting and naive for being duped by these fraudulent pastors, which is, IMO, rather cruel and it’s victim- blaming.

    Because of the parenting I received, I was vulnerable for YEARS, over most of my life, to being duped by swindlers and abusive types.

    My parents didn’t raise me to have boundaries, because good girls aren’t supposed to have them.

    Girls are supposed to be sweet, trusting, deferential things is how I was raised. It would’ve been oh so easy up until about 4 or 5 years ago for a seedy pastor (or others) to manipulate me.

  15. @ Ed Chapman:

    The Bible also teaches that the strong taking advantage of the weak is SIN. Whether it is in the form of sexual acts, money, or whatever else.

    That means a man using his position of perceived trust to manipulate a vulnerable woman into the sack is in sin.

  16. siteseer wrote:

    Ed Chapman wrote:
    Nope! I don’t care how it is viewed by women. It’s a false statement.
    – – – – – – – – –
    Sigh… Ed, Ed, Ed…

    That’s part and parcel one of the problems with gender complementarianism.

    (I don’t know if Ed is a complementarian or not, but that post sparked some thoughts for me… )

    Complementarians don’t care about what women think, or what a woman’s perception is.

    If you’re a woman, even if you are a complementarian woman (such as blogger Aimee Byrd), the male complementarians ignore that woman’s voice and input, or, if they pay attention,

    They chalk up any disagreements you (the woman) have with any aspect of complementarianism to you surely must have been seduced by Secular Feminist thinking,

    Or they come up with some other rationale to ignore your input. Because you are a woman.

    Your view does not matter, only because you are female.

    I don’t think Ed realizes how truly awful it is to say that he “doesn’t care about what women think” or how women perceive things, in a thread about women who have been sexually victimized by male clergy.

    The title of this thread is
    It’s Clergy Sex Abuse, Not Adultery

    We have at least one woman victim of CSA who has been participating in this thread to discuss her experiences with CSA, and she’s no doubt seen Ed’s remarks – it makes me cringe.

  17. Ed Chapman wrote:

    Julie Anne was treated in about the same manner. Therefore, she took to posting negative comments about her own church on, what was it, Google? She did not sit in pity. She had the guts to stand up to a Goliath who in turn sued her for 1/2 million dollars.

    Ed, you have a very short sighted, uncompassionate view of people who have been abused.

    People who have been deeply abused (whether as a child or adult, whether by clergy, a stranger, or whomever) often are so hurt, confused, and disoriented, they are not able to advocate for themselves.

    I don’t want to put words into Julie Anne’s mouth, but, knowing what I know of her from her blog, I think she would probably disagree and maybe even be appalled at how you’re using her in particular and her ability to be strong in the face of her victimization to be so cold and heartless towards other victims who could not, or did not, have the mental fortitude.

    A few years ago, I read about a program where children who have to sit on the stand and testify about being molested are given therapy dogs. The dog sits next to the child as he or she recounts the abuse.

    Why? Because these victims are terrified, feel ashamed, or over-come to have to sit and discuss their abuse, especially in front of their perp or discuss it in front of a bunch of strangers. The dog is there to provide unconditional support and love to the child, to make it more bearable.

    A lot of adults react the same way. They are too afraid or wounded to stand up for themselves in a court of law or in personal relationships.

    I am just astounded and horrified at your lack of compassion for folks who may not be as mentally strong as Julie Anne or yourself. Not everyone is as equally mentally strong and able to face tragedy and stress so well.

  18. Ed Chapman wrote:

    The problem that I have with that is that church’s are not supposed to have a chain of command. The pastor is not the Commanding Officer, the Associate Pastor is not the Executive Officer, and the Elders are not the department heads, and we pew sitters are not the peon’s.

    But the reality is this is the situation.

    And so long as it is the reality, underhanded pastors will continue to use it as another weapon in their arsenal to exploit naive, weak, or hurting people around them.

    Blaming victims in the meantime for not being savvy enough to realize all this stuff is mean-spirited.

  19. siteseer wrote:

    Ed, what good is that advice?

    Are you kidding? Love God and Love people, what good is that advice?

    Are you serious? Why don’t you just ask Jesus why that is good advice?

    Romans 13:9
    For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

    Romans 13:10
    Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

    Galatians 5:14
    For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

    James 2:8
    If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well:

    You see, secular institutions are not bound by the laws of God. They are not bound by LOVE GOD, let alone LOVE PEOPLE. That is why they need rules and regulations outside of the laws of the land.

    Our love laws are to a higher standard than secular institutions.

    If we would only obey God, we would be just hunky dory.

    So, what good advice is that, you say? Hmmmmm.

    Ed

  20. Daisy wrote:

    That’s part and parcel one of the problems with gender complementarianism.

    Daisy,

    This has nothing to do with comp stuff. You said women, so I responded women. If you had said men and women, I would have responded men and women. If you had said men, I would have responded men.

    Talk about nitpicking.

    Ed

  21. siteseer wrote:

    Ed Chapman wrote:

    If we all follow the behavior of what the Apostle Paul laid out, we won’t have any problems.

    Ed, what good is that advice?

    If we all always did everything right, we wouldn’t have any problems.

    No kidding? Why didn’t we all realize this sooner?

    If we all just “followed the behavior of what the Apostle Paul laid out,” if we all just understood a few facts and laws, then these things wouldn’t happen, or if they do happen it wouldn’t matter because it wouldn’t affect us- we’d just move a mile down the road and get the victory!

    If we could all just follow the law perfectly, we’d have none of these messy, confusing human problems. If only we’d all realized this sooner!

    Sheesh.

    Interesting first question. I never would have dreamed that this would even be a question in any Christian’s mind, let alone to have it flow into words on a computer screen.

    Romans 13:9
    For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

    Romans 13:10
    Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

    Galatians 5:14
    For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

    James 2:8
    If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well:

    You see, secular institutions are not bound by the laws of God. They are not bound by LOVE GOD, let alone LOVE PEOPLE. That is why they need rules and regulations outside of the laws of the land.

    Our love laws are a higher standard than secular institutions.

    Ed

  22. Kim rung wrote:

    t is the perfect profession to pick up ladies and feed a narcissist. Women automatically trust your level of commitment to the Lord and tell you some of the most painful things of their lives…………like, what better way of worming your way into her marriage, life’s disappointments and vulnerabilities. It is the perfect set up.

    …Not many other if any other helping professions have such amazing perks and loopholes to serve the narcissist. Church is not safe as it currently stands.

    There was a news story that came out a few months ago about how clergy as a profession attracts a high number of either narcissists or psycopaths.

    Someone here linked to the article. I can’t remember where I saw it.

    I couldn’t find that exact article, but here’s a similar one:
    10 Careers With the Most Psychopaths
    http://www.alternet.org/culture/10-careers-most-psychopaths

    Number Eight on that list is “Clergy.”

    Snippet from that page:
    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
    Joe Navarro, formerly of the FBI, created a list for Psychology Today of the myriad reasons psychopaths might be attracted to the clergy.

    Religious organizations provide easy access to victims, a source for financial rewards and easy legitimacy based on having an ordained position.

    Also— as if the other reasons aren’t creepy enough— in the case of organizations where confessions of “wrongdoing” are required, churches provide opportunities for excellent blackmail material to use on potential victims. …

  23. Ed Chapman wrote:

    Daisy,
    This has nothing to do with comp stuff. You said women, so I responded women. If you had said men and women, I would have responded men and women. If you had said men, I would have responded men.
    Talk about nitpicking. Ed

    You saying women’s views should not be considered or don’t matter is one basis of complementarianism, so my analogy is totally valid, Ed.

  24. refugee wrote:

    Ed Chapman wrote:

    But I don’t see much bible quoting going on, and I get slammed by many for bible quoting, showing me that they could care less at what the Bible has to say on the subject.

    Actually, I think it’s people like TT who couldn’t care less about applying the bible to their own actions.

    They don’t seem to have any problem with using the bible as a weapon to lay heavy burdens on others, however.

    You are absolutely right…I never implied that he cared at all. What I am implying is that no one is proving by biblical standards, or legal standards that any victim exists in the first place. All we know is that he had sex with congregants. That proves nothing in regards to sex abuse, legally, or biblically. I can’t say that anyone is a victim, as it can’t be proven, and you all are basing this on a false premise that pastors have power. There is no proof that pastors have power. There is no of proof of molestation or rape.

    What you all are saying is that women are too stupid to make a free will decision here. And I don’t buy that at all.

    Ed

  25. Ed Chapman wrote:

    I never said that. In a church setting only, it is not allowed for anyone. What goes on in the secular world is not my concern here. In the secular world, it’s allowed. Not in the church. And that goes for anyone in the church, not just the pastor.

    It may be easier for a man who works as a pastor to manipulate a hurting woman into the sack then her neighbor Joe Bob who lives next door and works as a dentist..

    Because, you guessed it, a lot of people invest their pastor (or pastors in general) with a naive trust and look up to them and consider them as spiritual authority figures.

    That is the reality of life whether you like it or not.

  26. Daisy wrote:

    Ed Chapman wrote:

    Daisy,
    This has nothing to do with comp stuff. You said women, so I responded women. If you had said men and women, I would have responded men and women. If you had said men, I would have responded men.
    Talk about nitpicking. Ed

    You saying women’s views should not be considered or don’t matter is one basis of complementarianism, so my analogy is totally valid, Ed.

    You are making an assumption that the women are too stupid to make a free will decision, that all women are victims, just because a pastor had sex with them.

    Ed

  27. Ken G wrote:

    There is Ed Bashing because you need to get with the program espoused on this blog. Remember, women are always victims because they were vulnerable, tricked, were emotionally distraught, not thinking clearly, etc. Even if the act was consentual, the woman can later change her mind and claim it wasn’t. Once you grasp these principles, the ED Bashing will cease.

    That is a mischaracterization of my postion and that of several other people who are participating in this thread.

    Where there are jobs or relationships that contain a formal or informal power imbalance, there cannot be true consent for sexual relations.

    That is why it is illegal in some states for clergy to have sexual relations with parishioners, or for psychologists to sleep with their clients.

    I have, however, in several posts here (and at the SSB blog) said there may be cases where there is a mutual affair between a male clergy member and a woman. Some of these affairs might even possibly be initiated by the woman.

    Even so, honest pastors recognize the power imbalance and realize it’s up to them to keep the boundaries intact.

    The same would hold true if the genders are reverses and it’s a female clergy member and a male believer.

  28. Ed Chapman wrote:

    You are making an assumption that the women are too stupid to make a free will decision, that all women are victims, just because a pastor had sex with them. Ed

    I’m saying when a person has undergone trauma, or stress, they may be too confused or hurt to make good, clear choices or decisions, which leaves them “easy prey” for bad pastors who have ulterior motives.

    (The pastors realize that women who are hurting or undergoing stress make for easy prey.)

    Being emotionally weak is not the same thing as being “stupid.”

    As someone who used to have clinical depression who was socialized by her Christian parents to be a passive doormat, I very much resent you depicting mental illness or emotional weakness as being the same thing as “stupidity.”

    Your views are completely nasty.

  29. Daisy wrote:

    Ed Chapman wrote:
    Daisy,
    This has nothing to do with comp stuff. You said women, so I responded women. If you had said men and women, I would have responded men and women. If you had said men, I would have responded men.
    Talk about nitpicking. Ed
    You saying women’s views should not be considered or don’t matter is one basis of complementarianism, so my analogy is totally valid, Ed.

    You know, I actually got Ed’s point when he said that. Kind of. I didn’t agree with it, but I had a glimmer of his meaning. He said something to the effect that he refused to consider the women’s views because they were coming from a false premise or something to that effect.

    What Ed has seemed incapable of understanding, to this point, is that even if a premise is faulty, it is still *real* to the person. Like the facebook post of a woman who lived under domestic violence for too long (was it linked here? I can’t remember where I found the original link), until she finally extricated herself (and no doubt it was not an easy process):

    A woman who is freeing herself and her children from abuse is acting on her own direct knowledge of what is real, and as someone who cared for my family has pointed out, there is a distinction between what’s real and what we can prove. Hundreds of things have happened to each of us this past week for which we now have no proof, but those things really did happen. We have those memories, and we are sure of them.

    Ed seems to think that if they have no solid proof, then it wasn’t abuse. Or something like that.

    Or if women (and men) give power and authority to pastor/elders of their own free will, then it’s their own damned fault if they get hurt.

    He refuses to see the social dynamic, that causes people to respect and honor clergy, even calling them by names of honor like “pastor” or “father” or “brother”.

    And yes, Ed, I’m aware that the bible says we’re not supposed to call any man “father”. I do not ignore or denigrate what the bible says. I’m just a realist, and understand that nobody — *especially* someone who assumes a position that traditionally confers authority — is capable of following the Law (OT) and teachings of the NT perfectly. Or even close.

  30. Daisy wrote:

    Julie Anne was treated in about the same manner. Therefore, she took to posting negative comments about her own church on, what was it, Google? She did not sit in pity. She had the guts to stand up to a Goliath who in turn sued her for 1/2 million dollars.

    Ed, I was alerted to your comment, so will respond here. There is a reason why I spoke up. It’s because I realized that no one else would – everyone else was all paralyzed in fear. I survived a whole childhood of abuse and put 2 and 2 together that Chuck O’Neal was just a bully abuser, not someone who had any authority and control over me. Keep in mind, I had been out of that church for a couple of years before I posted the Google review. During that time I learned about abuse dynamics, systems of abuse. I became consumed with understanding bullies and narcissists and how they use others for self-gain.

    There is a good reason why others don’t speak up: they are still living in fear – paralyzing fear. To expect them to be able to speak up is ridiculous. Please research thought reform. It’s not at all that these people are dumb or foolish. They are responding in the only way they know how to survive. They are true victims.

    Tullian, Saeed, CJ Mahaney, Mark Driscoll, Doug Phillips, etc, all know how to use manipulation to control. Stop victim blaming.

  31. refugee wrote:

    Ed’s writing shows a lack of empathy. He reminds me a lot of someone I know well, who cannot understand another’s pain unless he has experienced that same pain himself.

    Even then, many times he does not ‘get it’ when other people express it. He gives them ‘useful’ (in his view) information, that if they only were to *try* (oh, how I hate the exhortation “just try harder!”) they would solve the problem.

    I have a family member who is like this. He will ask you why you suffer from depression or anxiety (or whatever).

    He thinks that feelings are not “real” unless you can explain them in a detached, logical, rational way.

    This family member of mine has a hard time putting himself into other people’s shoes and understanding why it is ‘something’ (whatever that ‘something’ is) bothers them, if it’s not something that has ever personally bothered him.

    It’s as though if he himself has not experienced “X” he cannot understand why anyone else would be bothered by “X” or feel hurt by “X.”

  32. @ refugee:

    Ed seems to think if it isn’t law in the bible or law in the us, then it’s peachy. At least that’s how I’m reading him.

    But law in the ot he applies equally to both parties. I have not yet seen him address the nt passage that directly references leaders taking advantage. In all the talk about how we hate bible verses you would think he would address the ones we mention.

    But the fact is, not every situation is going to be covered specifically in law or bible.

  33. Lea wrote:

    Ed seems to think if it isn’t law in the bible or law in the us, then it’s peachy. At least that’s how I’m reading him.

    It’s not just that. From what I’ve read of his arguments, he believes that if it *is* in the bible, then things are peachy.

    I don’t quite understand how it solves the real-life problem, though.

  34. Ed Chapman wrote:

    People seem to be dismissing the Bible, and creating their own set of ethics, leaving Jesus out of it. I don’t see much Jesus being discussed, just man made ethics.

    I think Ken G was attempting to defend you (?), by misrepresenting my views.

    I addressed his post higher up in this thread.

    The Bible points out that people who are mentally or physically stronger can and do exploit those who are mentally or physically weaker.

    The Bible also talks about how the rich will use their money and prestige to walk all over the poor.

    The category of predatory male pastors who use their positions to manipulate women into the sack would fall under that.

    Not all sexual attacks or harassment takes place by brute force, by using physical pain or a weapon.

    Some sexual abusers opt to use psychological means and pressures to seduce emotionally hurting people. I don’t see where the Bible would support that.

  35. Daisy wrote:

    I have a family member who is like this. He will ask you why you suffer from depression or anxiety (or whatever).
    He thinks that feelings are not “real” unless you can explain them in a detached, logical, rational way.
    This family member of mine has a hard time putting himself into other people’s shoes and understanding why it is ‘something’ (whatever that ‘something’ is) bothers them, if it’s not something that has ever personally bothered him.
    It’s as though if he himself has not experienced “X” he cannot understand why anyone else would be bothered by “X” or feel hurt by “X.”

    I am living with this person.

    To add a corollary, if this person *has* actually experienced “X” and overcome it, then there’s no reason why you can’t just buckle down and overcome it, too.

    Apparently with no effort on your part. Just change your mindset.

    (And though it may have taken intense, long-term effort, and they will admit to it, they *still* have a way of minimizing that effort when they express to you that you can do it, too. Just choose to go another way. Just change your mind. Just do it.)

    Nike thinking. Makes a great advertising slogan but gets kind of messy in real life.

  36. Julie Anne wrote:

    research thought reform. It’s not at all that these people are dumb or foolish. They are responding in the only way they know how to survive. They are true victims.

    If interested in finding out more about “thought reform” here’s a three-part series I did that goes into the research work of Dr. Robert Jay Lifton on that subject. He based it on in-person interviews with people who had been imprisoned by the Maoist government during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. The tactics of “totalism” and social control Mao used are the same kinds of things we still see in other toxic systems, including some churches and ministries.

    https://futuristguy.wordpress.com/2012/05/16/the-hunger-games-trilogy-5a/

  37. Ed Chapman wrote:

    A lack of empathy? Are you kidding? Prove to me that there are victims in this case of TT having sex with congregants.

    Does it have to be Tullian in particular?

    You seem to deny that there are predatory pastors in general terms, not just in regards to the specific case of Tullian.

    You seem to deny there is such a thing as C.S.A. in general terms, or at all.

    Or, (from what I can piece together from your posts), you will only grant that CSA exists in very specific cases, such as:
    “Pastor Wearing Counseling Hat”

    But then walk back that meager concession by saying things such as:

    -“The Bible calls that adultery” or
    – “She didn’t call the cops when it happened” or
    -“The Bible doesn’t give authority over women, those women are dummies and stupid and deserve to be sexually duped for thinking their pastor has authority or sway over them”

  38. refugee wrote:

    I am living with this person.
    To add a corollary, if this person *has* actually experienced “X” and overcome it, then there’s no reason why you can’t just buckle down and overcome it, too.

    Apparently with no effort on your part. Just change your mindset.

    (And though it may have taken intense, long-term effort, and they will admit to it, they *still* have a way of minimizing that effort when they express to you that you can do it, too. Just choose to go another way. Just change your mind. Just do it.)

    I am so sorry.

    About the part I put in bold – the stuff about, “Hey it happened to me, I got over it, so should you” type of stuff.

    That is my big sister to a “T.” My big sister has that very attitude.

    She has no empathy at all, if you are undergoing a trial in life that she did years ago that she’s over now.

    Her attitude is, “I went through that ten years ago, got over it fine, so stop your cry baby whining about it, cry baby.”

    I’ve since learned to stop confiding in her about painful personal life trials.

  39. Ed Chapman wrote:

    If we would only obey God, we would be just hunky dory.

    So, what good advice is that, you say? Hmmmmm.

    Yes, what good is it to tell someone that AFTER they’ve been victimized by someone who was a wolf in sheep’s clothing?

  40. Daisy wrote:

    We have at least one woman victim of CSA who has been participating in this thread to discuss her experiences with CSA, and she’s no doubt seen Ed’s remarks – it makes me cringe.

    Exactly.

  41. Ed Chapman wrote:

    But, seems that I am getting a bad rap here, because you want me to believe that the pastor has power. I do not believe that for one moment.

    But from their point of view, their pastor does have power.

    Or they think of him as a super nice guy, an ally, a buddy.

    As to the rest of your post, I commend you there. Great suggestions – about helping the couple in practical ways such as buying them groceries if they cannot afford them and so on.

  42. refugee wrote:

    *sigh*
    Hugs to you.

    Hugs back to you, for you have similar folks in your family.

    Real quick I wanted to add that the cherry on top about my big sister:
    When she’s undergoing painful life trials, she expects me to be really empathetic and understanding to her.

    She refuses to extend empathy to me if I tell her about my problems, though. She gets really judgmental and angry.

    This hypocrisy of hers on this point drives me nuts.

  43. Ken G wrote:

    There is Ed Bashing because you need to get with the program espoused on this blog. Remember, women are always victims because they were vulnerable, tricked, were emotionally distraught, not thinking clearly, etc. Even if the act was consentual, the woman can later change her mind and claim it wasn’t. Once you grasp these principles, the ED Bashing will cease.

    You are mistaken. Power dynamics and abuse are the same regardless of gender. I have had the misfortune of knowing a couple female psychopaths in my life. That is why I used he/she in my post.

    I would not be surprised at all to find out big-name female Christian celebrities are abusive behind the scenes.

    Men can be the victims of manipulation and power plays, too, and often they suffer in silence, without support, because they are ashamed to admit it happened to them.

  44. Friend wrote:

    Just noticed this. Secular settings are not a free-for-all within the bounds of the law of the land.

    Many workplaces, schools, hospitals, volunteer organizations, etc., have rules about conduct that are more strict than the law.

    I mention this not to quibble with you, but because we Christians have a common misconception that the rest of the world has no standards…

    Good points.
    Sometimes, secular employers or people have better, or higher, standards than some churches or Christians do!

  45. siteseer wrote:

    I would not be surprised at all to find out big-name female Christian celebrities are abusive behind the scenes.

    One of the most abusive people I used to know was the wife of a church elder.

  46. Lea wrote:

    It’s not even true. You can do everything right and still be hurt by other around you.

    Yes, Ed’s solution depends on everyone always doing The Right Thing.

    All it amounts to is shaming the victim for not having done The Right Thing. Which they have no doubt already figured out in hindsight, adding guilt to what they’re already suffering, but it was not so clear at the time because… they were being manipulated and coerced.

  47. Friend wrote:

    refugee wrote:
    they strike me as more morally upright than the so-called christians we are talking about here.

    (Friend said)
    Sadly often the case.

    Even putting aside spiritual or sexual abuse momentarily, I’ve found this to be true in other areas of life.

    When I had clinical depression or was in grief after my Mother passed, what little empathy and comfort I got mostly came from Non-Christian people I spoke to or already knew.

    The Christians I went to wanted to judge me, tell me to just stuff down the bad feelings, or they would toss “biblical solutions” at me, none of which consoled me or helped but made me feel even more lost, misunderstood, and left me hurting.

    Non-Christians seem to intuitively grasp the concept the Bible talks about that should be used to comfort the hurting:
    “Weep with those who weep.”

  48. Ed Chapman wrote:

    We in the Christian world do not need all those extra biblical rules and regulations

    What extra-biblical rules and regulations are you talking about?

  49. refugee wrote:

    Make that two. One the wife of an elder, in one church, and the other the wife of the pastor of another church.

    Yes, sometimes women can be abusive, mean, or cruel to other people.

    One of the worst people I ever dealt with on a job was one woman boss I had. I did have a few difficult male co-workers, but this one woman boss was the worst.

  50. Kim rung wrote:

    I want to warn and protect all from wolves. They do exist.

    Thank you for sharing your story in the video and here on this blog.

    I think maybe part of protecting people from the wolves in sheep’s clothing is discussing the techniques and methods they use, and to make people aware that some preachers are not trustworthy and do not have your best interests at heart.

  51. Julie Anne wrote:

    Daisy wrote:

    Julie Anne was treated in about the same manner. Therefore, she took to posting negative comments about her own church on, what was it, Google? She did not sit in pity. She had the guts to stand up to a Goliath who in turn sued her for 1/2 million dollars.

    Ed, I was alerted to your comment, so will respond here. There is a reason why I spoke up. It’s because I realized that no one else would – everyone else was all paralyzed in fear. I survived a whole childhood of abuse and put 2 and 2 together that Chuck O’Neal was just a bully abuser, not someone who had any authority and control over me. Keep in mind, I had been out of that church for a couple of years before I posted the Google review. During that time I learned about abuse dynamics, systems of abuse. I became consumed with understanding bullies and narcissists and how they use others for self-gain.

    There is a good reason why others don’t speak up: they are still living in fear – paralyzing fear. To expect them to be able to speak up is ridiculous. Please research thought reform. It’s not at all that these people are dumb or foolish. They are responding in the only way they know how to survive. They are true victims.

    Tullian, Saeed, CJ Mahaney, Mark Driscoll, Doug Phillips, etc, all know how to use manipulation to control. Stop victim blaming.

    Not victim blaming. There is no proof as to the existence of a victim, either biblical or legal, just because a pastor sleeps with a woman congregant, that is no proof.

    All those men that you mentioned, they created victims, no doubt, and you exposed them. But to make a blanket statement that all women are victims just because their pastor had sex with them is totally wrong, because not all women as distraught as you are implying. They have that free will consent to have sex with anyone that they want, including a pastor. There is no legal or biblical bases to say that they can’t.

    Ed

  52. refugee wrote:

    That’s why I find this kind of discussion frustrating. Pie-in-the-sky thinking does not fit well into a discussion of real-world issues, and seeking real-world, workable solutions.

    I agree.

    It’s like theologians of the complementarian bent who are in their ivory towers, or on their blogs, who write intellectual, religious-tainted essays about domestic violence, and the whole thing is nothing more than an abstract concept or scholarly exercise for them.

    Meanwhile, their teachings about marriage and gender roles are having very real-life (negative) consequences on real- life Christian women who are married to abusive Christian men.

    But yes, being idealistic about this issue (CSA) is not going to necessarily help women who are victimized by it.

    I can see how women may benefit from learning their pastor has no authority over them and so on (which is what Ed keeps hammering on),
    but,
    it’s just a fact of life that a lot of people do continue to view their pastor as an authority figure, or credible friend and buddy figure, who they can lean on in times of distress.

    So long as that thinking is in place, pastors with nefarious motives will continue to use that as another tool to exploit women (and men).

  53. Daisy wrote:

    I think maybe part of protecting people from the wolves in sheep’s clothing is discussing the techniques and methods they use, and to make people aware that some preachers are not trustworthy and do not have your best interests at heart.

    I think this is the part Ed isn’t catching. We talk about these things to warn others precisely so they Won’t be duped and trust the wrong. Just saying people ought to love doesn’t really solve it when you run into someone manipulative. Those people will claim to love you and some of them are very convincing. It helps to know its a scam.

  54. Ed Chapman wrote:

    Not victim blaming. There is no proof as to the existence of a victim, either biblical or legal, just because a pastor sleeps with a woman congregant, that is no proof.

    It depends on the context, Ed.

    I’ve given you examples in other posts of how pastors can use their position of pastor in Non-Counseling areas to manipulate women.

    They use their job and job title and influence to sway their targets.

    Not all skeevy pastors are going to wait to soften a woman up in an hour in their office that is designated as a Counseling Session.

    Some of these pastors may “hit on” the targeted woman of their choice when they see her at the local store or out and about at the shopping mall or where ever.

    You asked Julie Anne about Tullian specifically in your post. As I asked you above:

    Does it have to be Tullian in particular?
    You seem to deny that there are predatory pastors in general terms, not just in regards to the specific case of Tullian.
    You seem to deny there is such a thing as C.S.A. in general terms, or at all.
    Or, (from what I can piece together from your posts), you will only grant that CSA exists in very specific cases, such as:
    “Pastor Wearing Counseling Hat”
    But then walk back that meager concession by saying things such as:
    -“The Bible calls that adultery” or
    – “She didn’t call the cops when it happened” or
    -“The Bible doesn’t give authority over women, those women are dummies and stupid and deserve to be sexually duped for thinking their pastor has authority or sway over them”

  55. Ed Chapman wrote:

    Not victim blaming. There is no proof as to the existence of a victim, either biblical or legal, just because a pastor sleeps with a woman congregant, that is no proof.

    Question. So until you have ‘proof’ (whatever would actually satisfy you-which I’m guessing is nothing less than a legal conviction of some sort) you have no victim.

    You do realize even in things would consider to be actual crimes there is often insufficient proof to convict.

  56. Lea wrote:

    Daisy wrote:

    I think maybe part of protecting people from the wolves in sheep’s clothing is discussing the techniques and methods they use, and to make people aware that some preachers are not trustworthy and do not have your best interests at heart.

    I think this is the part Ed isn’t catching. We talk about these things to warn others precisely so they Won’t be duped and trust the wrong. Just saying people ought to love doesn’t really solve it when you run into someone manipulative. Those people will claim to love you and some of them are very convincing. It helps to know its a scam.

    The Bible tells us all this stuff already. Paul discusses all this. Do we not read our bibles in order to know who is a wolf, and who isn’t?

    Ed

  57. Lea wrote:

    Ed Chapman wrote:

    Not victim blaming. There is no proof as to the existence of a victim, either biblical or legal, just because a pastor sleeps with a woman congregant, that is no proof.

    Question. So until you have ‘proof’ (whatever would actually satisfy you-which I’m guessing is nothing less than a legal conviction of some sort) you have no victim.

    You do realize even in things would consider to be actual crimes there is often insufficient proof to convict.

    There must be evidence. Even the bible discusses this too. By the mouth of 2 or 3. Well, DNA is a witness in a very real sense. There are procedures to follow to maintain that evidence. If you are not willing to follow legal procedures, then how can you win your case?

    Ed

  58. siteseer wrote:

    A person leaving a church is leaving a lot more than a pastor. They are leaving all of the relationships they’ve been involved in, they are pulling their children out of all the relationships they’ve had.

    They are leaving any work they have been doing in the church- they may have spent a great deal of time and effort to build up a ministry

    I’ve read people online who say when they were kicked out of a church (after having been spiritually abused) or left of their own accord, and it was very painful, they said.

    Some people make a church their one and only place where they establish or maintain social support or social ties.

    This can leave them in a very vulnerable position if they have to leave the church for whatever reason. They can find themselves without any friends at all.

  59. Ed Chapman wrote:

    The Bible tells us all this stuff already. Paul discusses all this. Do we not read our bibles in order to know who is a wolf, and who isn’t?

    Sometimes the sheep don’t discover a wolf is a wolf until after the wolf has partially devoured them.

    Sometimes some people are not as quick or adept to spot a wolf quickly.

    Even secular culture understands this concept, which is why every year, police departments (and other groups) issue tips to the public on how to avoid phone, internet, and consumer fraud and rip-offs.

    Some people are more naive and trusting than others, so they might not be able to spot a wolf is a wolf, or not as fast as someone else can.

  60. Ed Chapman wrote:

    The Bible tells us all this stuff already. Paul discusses all this. Do we not read our bibles in order to know who is a wolf, and who isn’t?

    If only the bible helpfully listed every wolf in existence! Oh wait, it doesn’t do that at all.

  61. Ed Chapman wrote:

    We in the Christian world do not need all those extra biblical rules and regulations.

    That doesn’t pass the “reasonable person” test. I can be the most loving Christian in the world, but if I build a restaurant, I still need to license the place, to know and follow food safety regulations, and make sure I’m paying a legal wage. To me that IS being a loving Christian, because I believe Paul’s writing about the civil authorities.

  62. refugee wrote:

    People like Ed might have told us that we *did* have alternatives, but we would not have believed him, so his words would have blown away on the wind, for all practical purposes.

    Yes, some people don’t realize they have choices.

    Due to the way some people are brought up by their parents or taught by their churches, they don’t realize all the options they have.

    These people walk into adulthood being more naive, trusting, and child-like in thinking leaving them more vulnerable to being manipulated, as opposed to another adult who had a more normal up-bringing.

    There was a series of guest posts at SSB blog about this very topic, or ones close to it. Here is a link to one of the posts:

    Using Katie Botkin’s lifeboat analogy, Cindy Kunsman explores the “Second Generation Adult” and Lourdes Torres-Mantefeuel’s alleged sex abuse by Vision Forum’s Doug Phillips
    https://spiritualsoundingboard.com/2014/05/12/lourdes-lifeboats-and-bounded-choice-part-iii-raised-in-a-totalist-institution/

  63. Lea wrote:

    Serving Kids In Japan wrote:
    BE THE VICTORY!!!”
    I kind of want to start shouting this randomly a bars though. Maybe it should be my new mantra at yoga?

    It took me a minute to figure out what it reminded me of, but it reminds me of the slogan in the movie “Bruce Almighty” where a few of the characters in the movie keep yelling,
    “BE THE MIRACLE!!!”

  64. siteseer wrote:

    And, sorry, but who are you that anyone should have to prove they have been victimized to you?

    Ed keeps asking for proof in the specific case of Tullian, which I think is maybe a bit of a grey area at this time.

    From what I’ve read on Julie Anne’s blog, she has been in contact (in private) with women who were involved with Tullian.

    JA says these ladies say (to her, in private) that TT approached them via his Twitter account, the one that had his “pastor” title in the screen name.

    If TT was using his “pastor TT” account to select women for flirtation – these were apparently women who went to his church and/or women who knew of him from his TV preaching, I suppose – this could be a case of CSA.

    If we have a situation where one of his mistresses didn’t know he was a pastor and started flirting with him while standing in line at the local Arby’s, I could see how that can get the label of “adultery” or “affair.”

    If, though, TT was doing his flirting with women who knew he was a preacher and/or while using the pastor title on social media, I think stuff like that changes things.

    It really would depend on the particulars of each case, IMO, if what TT did with each woman was CSA or an old-fashioned case of adultery.

  65. Ed Chapman wrote:

    Do we not read our bibles in order to know who is a wolf, and who isn’t?
    Ed

    A guy who identifies himself as “Beel from Veendows” calls my house every week or so. The Bible does not tell me that I should not give Beel access to my computer. I know about Windows scams from secular sources.

  66. Ed Chapman wrote:

    But I don’t see much bible quoting going on, and I get slammed by many for bible quoting, showing me that they could care less at what the Bible has to say on the subject.

    I don’t think quoting Bible verses at you will do any good because you refuse to see or understand about the dynamics of abuse brought about by power imbalances in relationships.

    And besides, that is not true.

    I’ve mentioned the Bible several times over, how the Bible condemns the rich taking advantage of the poor, or the strong taking advantage of the weak.

    Those concepts are in the Bible, and you can go to a Bible search site such as ‘Bible Gateway’ to look it up.

    BTW, repeatedly pointing out that the Bible forbids adultery is not a “slam and shut case” for your argument.

    A pastor seducing a troubled woman is not a clear cut case of adultery but is a form of sexual abuse, more a case of the strong taking advantage of the weak.

    A woman who is emotionally weak, undergoing tragedy in her life, is not in a place to rationally, clearly choose of her own free will to diddle a pastor.

    And the pastor should know this, and probably refuse to talk to the woman further, and perhaps refer her to another person for treatment.

    Someone else and later on me, quoted this at you (from THE BIBLE):

    2 Timothy 3:6
    They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over gullible women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires

    Then you have Bible verses which allude to predatory pastors who prey on hurting women for their sexual kicks such as:

    Matthew 7:15-16But small is the gate and narrow the way that leads to life, and only a few find it. 15 Beware of false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.
    16 By their fruit you will recognize them.

  67. Ed Chapman wrote:

    But, seems that I am getting a bad rap here, because you want me to believe that the pastor has power. I do not believe that for one moment.

    “….the pastor has power. I do not believe that for one moment….”

    Ed, that’s what everyone on here is saying! However, there are multitudes do church leaders out there that are bent on convincing people (sometimes very successfully) that the pastor and elders DO have authoritative power! That is a part of what we are railing again in these posts.
    #1: Church leaders convince the church members that they have authority (keys to the Kingdom?) over the pew sitters.
    #2: After snowing the pew sitters into believing that church leaders are THE authority, some (note: I say some, not all) church leaders use their self-ordained powers to take advantage of people; financially, physically, mentally ….

    It’s nothing more than a classic bait and switch, only this is done “in the name of God”. People need to be informed, and those who have been taken advantage of deserve some form of legal recourse. Church leaders who do these things are charlatans and heretics, and they need to be exposed.

  68. Let me do a little bit of a reverse psychology here for a moment.

    Fist, the statement:

    Blanket statement:
    It’s clergy sex abuse if the pastor has sex with a congregant.

    Why? Because she is weak and vulnerable, etc., etc.

    Conclusion: All women who sleep with a pastor has a psychological problem, incapacitated, incapable of making a decision for themselves, because what sane woman would do such a thing?

    My real conclusion: Not all women are weak and vulnerable that sleep with pastors. We cannot make a blanket statement that it is sex abuse.

    Ed

  69. Ed Chapman wrote:

    The Bible tells us all this stuff already. Paul discusses all this. Do we not read our bibles in order to know who is a wolf, and who isn’t?

    But when they come in sheep’s clothing, it can be difficult (at first) to distinguish them from the genuine sheep.

    Y’know, if a guy walked in the door with a sign around his neck that said, “Hey, I’m going to snow you, and I’m going to tell you a lot of lies, and I’m going to use actual Bible verses to tell you that you have to let me run your life and make all your decisions for you — and I’ll even sweeten it by telling you it’s for your own good, and you need to obey me because the bible says you are not to trouble me because I’m accountable to God for your souls — oh, and hey, while I’m at it, maybe I’ll molest a few of your children, or persuade a wife or two to let me use her body for my pleasure…”

    Yeah, people might take notice at that. Our former pastor entered the church with an earnest mien, a quip or two about Tolkien and Lewis, a sympathetic smile…

    Who could have told us of the harm he would come to inflict? And if they had told us, would we have believed? Or would we have pointed a finger at them and muttered darkly about false accusations? (Like someone here at TWW mentioned in a recent comment, while disparaging women who have actually been abused with the sentiment that “(of course) all women are victims…”)

  70. @ refugee:
    p.s. Our former pastor, to be perfectly clear, did not molest children or commit adultery with women in the congregation.

  71. Ed Chapman wrote:

    My real conclusion: Not all women are weak and vulnerable that sleep with pastors. We cannot make a blanket statement that it is sex abuse.

    Ah. Isn’t that some kind of logical fallacy or other? “Just because some of “a” isn’t true, then all of “a” is false?

  72. refugee wrote:

    Actually, I think it’s people like TT who couldn’t care less about applying the bible to their own actions.
    They don’t seem to have any problem with using the bible as a weapon to lay heavy burdens on others, however.

    I used to watch Tullian when he had his own TV show on each Sunday.

    He is big and heavy into preaching Grace, which might not be such a bad thing in and of itself, but I wonder if he views Grace as a ‘license to sin.’

    I could be wrong but my impression is that TT thinks that because he is under Grace he can pretty much live life any old way he wants to, and nobody can or should call him out on having affairs or abusing ladies, but if they do, they are being big meanies.

    His preaching on Grace is quite similar, IMO, to that of TV preacher Joseph Prince.

  73. @ refugee:
    Or maybe, more precisely, it’s something like, “Just because *some* part of ‘a’ (no matter how small) does not meet the criteria, that means that *none* of ‘a’ meets the criteria.”

    It really does sound like a logical fallacy, though I could be wrong.

  74. Ed Chapman wrote:

    Julie Anne wrote:
    Daisy wrote:
    Julie Anne was treated in about the same manner. Therefore, she took to posting negative comments about her own church on, what was it, Google? She did not sit in pity. She had the guts to stand up to a Goliath who in turn sued her for 1/2 million dollars.
    Ed, I was alerted to your comment, so will respond here. There is a reason why I spoke up. It’s because I realized that no one else would – everyone else was all paralyzed in fear. I survived a whole childhood of abuse and put 2 and 2 together that Chuck O’Neal was just a bully abuser, not someone who had any authority and control over me. Keep in mind, I had been out of that church for a couple of years before I posted the Google review. During that time I learned about abuse dynamics, systems of abuse. I became consumed with understanding bullies and narcissists and how they use others for self-gain.
    There is a good reason why others don’t speak up: they are still living in fear – paralyzing fear. To expect them to be able to speak up is ridiculous. Please research thought reform. It’s not at all that these people are dumb or foolish. They are responding in the only way they know how to survive. They are true victims.
    Tullian, Saeed, CJ Mahaney, Mark Driscoll, Doug Phillips, etc, all know how to use manipulation to control. Stop victim blaming.
    Not victim blaming. There is no proof as to the existence of a victim, either biblical or legal, just because a pastor sleeps with a woman congregant, that is no proof.
    All those men that you mentioned, they created victims, no doubt, and you exposed them. But to make a blanket statement that all women are victims just because their pastor had sex with them is totally wrong, because not all women as distraught as you are implying. They have that free will consent to have sex with anyone that they want, including a pastor. There is no legal or biblical bases to say that they can’t.
    Ed

    Ok, Ed. Believe what you want. I have a feeling if we went to pizza and beer again, it would be a long night. I hope you change your mind before that happens again 😉 I’m not going to engage anymore.

  75. @ Ed Chapman:

    But not everyone follows Apostle Paul’s advice, and not even Christians do all the time.

    I’ve sometimes found Non-Christians to be more loving and accepting of me during my times of trial than Christians.

  76. Ed Chapman wrote:

    Conclusion: All women who sleep with a pastor has a psychological problem, incapacitated, incapable of making a decision for themselves, because what sane woman would do such a thing?

    That’s not what I said.

    See my post here:
    http://thewartburgwatch.com/2016/10/03/its-clergy-sex-abuse-not-an-affair/comment-page-2/#comment-287525

    You are the one who keeps denying that there is ever a case of CSA, or you momentarily toss out “if he’s wearing a counseling hat” but then walk that back by saying, “But it still doesn’t count if she didn’t call the cops” etc and so on.
    But please see my post I linked to above in this post.

  77. Nancy2 wrote:

    #1: Church leaders convince the church members that they have authority (keys to the Kingdom?) over the pew sitters.
    #2: After snowing the pew sitters into believing that church leaders are THE authority, some (note: I say some, not all) church leaders use their self-ordained powers to take advantage of people; financially, physically, mentally ….

    Yup. Very thankful for blogs like TWW that warned against organizations like 9Marks and their interpretation of the keys.

    And just because Ed believes that church “leaders” have no RL authority, doesn’t mean that he can impose his belief on all those churches all over the world where the teachers teach otherwise, and the listeners have been swayed.

    Just recently, using complementarianism as an example (the subjugation of women) I heard a preacher refute all the points that I had brought up against complementarity, using scripture to do it, and it was so smooth, it left me reeling and questioning myself.

    And yet I have seen the fruit of that teaching for myself. It’s bad fruit. It’s rotten. It’s destructive. It leads to death, both spiritually, and for some, literally.

    How to have a church full of happy complementarians. Indeed.

    I have a pretty good brain, but I can’t always figure out what’s wrong in their scripture-based arguments.

    I haven’t even been able to convince my spouse why I object to Grudem and Piper. He read aloud to me (not my idea of fun) a whole section of Systematic Theology last night, to prove to me that Grudem was not teaching heresy, but good, solid stuff.

    You, yourself, Ed, think that you have a good grasp of sound theology. But what if you believe some heresy and don’t even know it’s heresy? How do you know you are rightly interpreting the scriptures? How will you get set straight? (I’m not saying you do, I’m just saying that gifted communicators can take bible verses and weave them together to achieve pretty much anything. Perhaps it’s a form of hypnosis.)

  78. @ Daisy:

    By the way, I find it equal parts amusing and equal parts frustrating that Ed wants Biblical BCV proof for the topic of CSA.

    I mean, even secular culture recognizes that secular psychiatrists and psychologists sometimes use their positions to take advantage of women patients…

    The Bible is kind of silent on that except in a general sense, because way back when, during the days of Moses and Paul, I don’t think people went to talk about their personal struggles with psychiatrists or psychologists.

    I don’t think psychiatrists or psychologists had even been invented yet. 🙂

    I do think there are general Biblical principles which touch on the topic of CSA which I’ve mentioned before.

  79. Ed Chapman wrote:

    The Bible tells us all this stuff already. Paul discusses all this. Do we not read our bibles in order to know who is a wolf, and who isn’t?

    Ed,
    The people in my cultish church read the bible, cover to cover, and memorized large sections of it. I daresay many of us knew the bible better than your average church goer. Maybe some of them, even better than your average seminarian. Some of the people there studied the scriptures in Hebrew and Greek to get every nuance they could. They were hungry for the word. They wanted to know more about God, and more and more.

    Yeah, we read the bible, and we knew all that stuff about wolves and false prophets. To us, the false prophets were the ones preaching equality for women, and that the gays should be tolerated (or even embraced) instead of jailed and deprogrammed of their deviant “choice”, and the ones who would have you vote for *gasp* liberal democrats, and *horrors* who told people it was okay to put their children in public schools and even send them to college, where every good, decent christian knows they will be targeted by evil atheist professors who will make it their life purpose to strip away the faith of their fathers…

    Recent conversation: The “wolf in sheep’s clothing” looks like an atheist, who infiltrates a local church in order to corrupt and change it. Yes, someone actually said this to me in a recent conversation. Or maybe gay people, masquerading as straight, are going to target a church, become members, recruit more of their kind, and take over. Pretty soon they’ll outvote the righteous people in the congregation, and they’ll start preaching and teaching hateful things. Like “love” and “respect” only not in the female subordination vein, maybe.

    Can you not understand this? Have you never run across it? It is out there. It is Real World. It is in more churches than you can imagine. And it’s spreading.

  80. I saw that. It is so true! Daisy wrote:

    There was a news story that came out a few months ago about how clergy as a profession attracts a high number of either narcissists or psycopaths.

  81. Julie Anne wrote (quoting Ed):

    But to make a blanket statement that all women are victims just because their pastor had sex with them is totally wrong, because not all women as distraught as you are implying.

    Wait. I missed something. Who said that *all* women are victims?

    And how does one jump from “not all women are victims” to “no such thing as a victim” (which is what your statement, “no proof as to the existence of a victim, either biblical or legal”, says to me?

    It seems to me that what people have been urging here is giving these women the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps you’re arguing that people should also extend the benefit of the doubt to TT… but would you not concede that he has established a pattern of behavior that diminishes that doubt, in his case?

    Maybe if the women he slept with had reputations for multiple affairs or “open” marriages would put them on even ground, in terms of culpability (you seem to be compelled to assign blame in the matter, and since it takes two to tango, you seem to want to assign equal blame and completely ignore any circumstances)… but then we get back into that territory where people blame a woman for wearing a short skirt or drinking an alcoholic beverage and “getting herself” raped. As if she was wearing a sign that said, “Rape me!”

    The only person I remember saying that “all women are victims” was the guy who seemed to be disparaging TWW commenters as enforcing some sort of “victim card” political correctness.

  82. refugee wrote:

    Recent conversation: The “wolf in sheep’s clothing” looks like an atheist, who infiltrates a local church in order to corrupt and change it. Yes, someone actually said this to me in a recent conversation. Or maybe gay people, masquerading as straight, are going to target a church, become members, recruit more of their kind, and take over. Pretty soon they’ll outvote the righteous people in the congregation, and they’ll start preaching and teaching hateful things. Like “love” and “respect” only not in the female subordination vein, maybe.

    In which case, the christians who are looking for these kinds of “wolves in sheeps’ clothing” — whose existence I actually rather doubt, as I just can’t envision a grand atheist conspiracy to destroy churches as the churches are doing a bang-up job all by themselves — are not looking for the kind of wolves who are preaching a different gospel, using familiar scriptures to do it.

  83. Yes, that was my purpose. My trauma counselor said she believes my pastor is a sociopathic personality…..I won’t go into the details. She said people like that are good at matching their attitude and response to the people and situation to hide their internal motives. They can read people like a book and in her training it isn’t a good idea to even look them directly in the eye. People don’t have the odd mind set they have so people can’t understand there is real evil because they aren’t wired that way. That is how these types get away with things. People attribute their own good onto them. They can’t believe anything different. It is too twisted for the average person. I wanted to show it, but try not to get to detailed. I have 100’s of documentation that supports all that was said. This is what it looks like and I will never trust another soul who is involved in church leadership ever again. 15 years is more than enough! Please learn….. Be safe. Daisy wrote:

    Kim rung wrote:

    I want to warn and protect all from wolves. They do exist.

    Thank you for sharing your story in the video and here on this blog.

    I think maybe part of protecting people from the wolves in sheep’s clothing is discussing the techniques and methods they use, and to make people aware that some preachers are not trustworthy and do not have your best interests at heart.

  84. refugee wrote:

    I have a pretty good brain, but I can’t always figure out what’s wrong in their scripture-based arguments.

    This is an issue. If someone starts quoting greek at you, and throwing out early church fathers, and they sound so logical, it takes a lot of guts to say I don’t care what you say, I KNOW this is wrong! Then people like Ed come along and say, ‘no, look at this scripture. Look at the words not the heart’. But the bible tells us about conscience and the spirit and the fruit, and we just have to cling to that.

  85. @ Kim rung:

    Thank you, Kim.

    I think I would add for Ed’s sake that it is perfectly biblical to warm people about Joe the coppersmith who can’t be trusted, or pastor bob down the street.

  86. Funny thing 8 months after my pastor staged his repentence and got all to surround him in his pain, my daughter got an odd text Thanksgiving day from his 9 year old girl (allegedly) asked odd questions about how my husband and I were doing, and telling her that her parents want us to return to church. My 15 year old daughter was shocked. His daughter asked my daughter to try to bring it up to her parents and see if they want to return. I took this odd text to my trauma counselor. She told me to put his name, picture and make of car at the police station which I did. I told my mom and he must have gotten tipped off I was not OK with this so by the time several days later I told the elders, he had reported it like it was just an innocent accident so they told my husband to let it go………that is how a sociopath works. It is comforting knowing exactly where he lives, his circle of friends and church. I will never be the same. The church response to help me and my family and ask him to leave my church would have made all the difference in the world. Instead they have 2 failed pastors and hired another young, high degree inexperienced pastor to put a bandaid over a pus filled leadership. I will be here for the next victim. They will have someone so wish I could have had. Churches are for the most part mine fields. Not the spiritual haven the apostle Paul was beaten, imprisoned or killed for. There are few pastors nowadays that would suffer at all for God. I look forward to Christ’s coming and being untied with His true bride someday.

  87. I sent The Hope of Survivirs materials and my story to the 30 churches afiliated with the gospel coalition in our state because my pastor was one of the founding pastors of our chapter and my old church even used his name a year after this to he their buddy’s to attend a expositional preaching class by Timothy Scott Warren there. I couldn’t believe my eyes! It hurts for both my husband and me because all we believed in was a gospel lie.

  88. I don’t know if Ed is still reading this thread or not, but if so.

    Ed is really preaching to the choir on some points.

    I’ve already said a few times here at the SSB Blog that I believe that in some cases a woman who sleeps with a preacher is equally responsible as the preacher is, and some of these cases can be considered a good-old fashioned case of run-of-the-mill adultery.

    But, it really depends on the context and the particulars of each case, something Ed doesn’t seem too interested in considering.

  89. Kim rung wrote:

    my daughter got an odd text Thanksgiving day from his 9 year old girl (allegedly) asked odd questions about how my husband and I were doing, and telling her that her parents want us to return to church.

    Is it possible that your former pastor was using his daughter’s phone and texting your daughter?

    That’s what I suspect that was doing, anyway.

    Regardless, he sounds like a creepy stalker.

    This blog did a post about a woman a week or two ago who has been stalked by her former pastor.

    Here is one of the posts about it, if you’d like to read it:
    Police Report Filed By an Alleged Stalking Victim of Dustin Boles
    http://thewartburgwatch.com/2016/09/16/police-report/

  90. I did read that recently. I think when I told the elders that regardless of their misconduct his info was at the police station sort of curbed future tries. He has to sit in public and the elders check on him throughout the day while his wife works says more than their cover up. I would have never believed such craziness could even exist. I am no longer trusting or a benefit of the type woman anymore. Daisy wrote:

    Kim rung wrote:

    my daughter got an odd text Thanksgiving day from his 9 year old girl (allegedly) asked odd questions about how my husband and I were doing, and telling her that her parents want us to return to church.

    Is it possible that your former pastor was using his daughter’s phone and texting your daughter?

    That’s what I suspect that was doing, anyway.

    Regardless, he sounds like a creepy stalker.

    This blog did a post about a woman a week or two ago who has been stalked by her former pastor.

    Here is one of the posts about it, if you’d like to read it:
    Police Report Filed By an Alleged Stalking Victim of Dustin Boles
    http://thewartburgwatch.com/2016/09/16/police-report/

  91. I guess as a final note…..he had 3,masters degrees by age 29. He was hired from being a youth pastor at McArthurs church in Cali at 27 years old which he was very proud of…….. I got it now…….I will speak to protect. That is it. As I close my involvement in the blog world(first time ever). I will continue to pray for integrity in church and safety. Thanks to all who have allowed to tell my story. Thank you for listening. Please pray along with me. ❤️God bless..

  92. Kim rung wrote:

    I am no longer trusting or a benefit of the type woman anymore

    You might be interested in reading a book called “The Nice Girl Syndrome” by author Beverly Engel.

    She has at least one chapter in that book where she talks about how a lot of women have been socialized to be too trusting of people and to keep giving the same horrible people chance after chance after chance, and she asks women to stop being so accommodating.

    You can read parts of that book for free on Google Book, if you like:

    The Nice Girl Syndrome:
    https://books.google.com/books?id=41Ub8eU_IKIC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_atb#v=onepage&q&f=false

  93. @ Kim Rung

    @ Daisy:

    P.S.
    I just skimmed through the Google Books link I gave you, and the specific chapter I was telling you (Kim) about is in Chapter 12, and the chapter title is
    “Start Facing the Truth About People”

    That is the chapter where she explains that a lot of women will keep giving the same person chance after chance after chance.

    That Google Books link again:
    https://books.google.com/books?id=41Ub8eU_IKIC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_atb#v=onepage&q&f=false

  94. Read it, along with boundaries during the past year of trauma counseling. I little late but so relevant. I cut off my abusive parents, brother and sister in law this year. It was the hardest thing I have ever done in my whole life. With a good counselor it is still extremely painful. But this time I don’t have to fight someone using me at the same time. I will make it this time: Secular counselor that I can’t thank God more for! Daisy wrote:

    Kim rung wrote:

    I am no longer trusting or a benefit of the type woman anymore

    You might be interested in reading a book called “The Nice Girl Syndrome” by author Beverly Engel.

    She has at least one chapter in that book where she talks about how a lot of women have been socialized to be too trusting of people and to keep giving the same horrible people chance after chance after chance, and she asks women to stop being so accommodating.

    You can read parts of that book for free on Google Book, if you like:

    The Nice Girl Syndrome:
    https://books.google.com/books?id=41Ub8eU_IKIC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_atb#v=onepage&q&f=false

  95. The Hope of Survivors is an excellent resource for survivors of clergy sexual abuse. They helped us immensely in addressing what it really is and how to educate others on it. There are 13 states in which CSA is illegal, with several states now introducing legislation. We introduced legislation in Maine. It passed by a unanimous vote “Ought to Pass” in the Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee. Unfortunately, on the House floor it was tabled, then days later it was mysteriously postponed indefinitely. It is the only bill that came before the CJPS Committee in the 127th session which was voted unanimously “Ought to Pass” that is not now law, as all others passed “under the hammer” and are now law. It is believed that a certain religious leader, or leaders, worked behind the scenes to effectively kill our bill. We won’t be silent, as social media is helping spread the word about the need for CSA laws in all states, and we will be going back in the 128th session to re-introduce the bill; this time with certain forces with us that should help enable its passage.

  96. Daisy wrote:

    Regardless, he sounds like a creepy stalker.

    Adding to the list of good books to read: Gavin de Becker’s The Gift of Fear.

  97. Kim rung wrote:

    Read it, along with boundaries during the past year of trauma counseling. I little late but so relevant. I cut off my abusive parents, brother and sister in law this year. It was the hardest thing I have ever done in my whole life.

    With a good counselor it is still extremely painful. But this time I don’t have to fight someone using me at the same time. I will make it this time: Secular counselor that I can’t thank God more for!

    I found those books very helpful too.

    I often find secular resources more helpful and practical than most stuff by Christians.

    I have a verbally abusive big sister I kind of cut out of my life starting two years ago – not totally, I still sometimes send her birthday cards and stuff, but she would not stop with the verbal abuse even after I confronted her about it.

    So, I stop calling and writing her as much.

    You sometimes have to cut people out of your life or cut down contact to keep your boundaries in place so the person can’t keep hurting you repeatedly.

    Unfortunately, that principle doesn’t seem to be well known or supported by most Christians.

    A lot of Christians have these strange ideas that being loving and forgiving means you have to allow an abusive person to stay in your life and keep hurting you.

  98. Velour wrote:

    Adding to the list of good books to read: Gavin de Becker’s The Gift of Fear.

    I have a copy of that book, but it’s been a couple of years since I read it. It is a good book.

    It bothers me to no end that some of the very same behaviors that complementarians encourage women to have are the very ones that De Becker says that stalkers and violent men find desireable in women targets.

    Comps are making women look appealing to creeps.

  99. Ed Chapman wrote:

    And the bible really does tell us what love looks like. But I don’t see much bible quoting going on, and I get slammed by many for bible quoting, showing me that they could care less at what the Bible has to say on the subject.

    I care very much what the Bible says, Ed. But I also recognize that there’s more to truth and wisdom — even love — than what is in the Bible. As much as we believers value God’s word, we can’t ignore real experiences (whether our own or those of others) which teach us truths that the Bible doesn’t cover. Just because it doesn’t say, “a pastor has power over congregants” doesn’t mean it isn’t true in the lives of real people.

    Please don’t dismiss victims of Tullian Tchividjian, Ed — and yes, I do view them as victims. Their experience is no less real for being out of line with your interpretation of the Bible. That is why I mentioned “Doctrine Over Person” in a previous comment.

  100. Ed Chapman wrote:

    There is no proof that pastors have power.

    The fact they have access to your information, control the narrative with the whole congregation, can turn all of your friends and even family against you, slander you in the community with impunity, destroy your reputation, and destroy your ability to make a living is not “proof” to you. I’m trying to figure out how you define “power”? Someone’s ability to hurt you and mess up your life is not power to you. Do you have another word for it?

    How about what happened to James Duncan? Was there a power differential between James and the pastor he ticked off or not? http://www.pajamapages.com/our-story/

    Ed Chapman wrote:

    Not victim blaming. There is no proof as to the existence of a victim, either biblical or legal, just because a pastor sleeps with a woman congregant, that is no proof.

    It is highly suspicious, because of the power differential. The person without the power deserves the benefit of the doubt.

    Ed Chapman wrote:

    It’s clergy sex abuse if the pastor has sex with a congregant.

    Why? Because she is weak and vulnerable, etc., etc.

    No, because the pastor holds much more power than the congregant does so that the possibility of manipulation and coercion need to be recognized.

    Ed Chapman wrote:

    My real conclusion: Not all women are weak and vulnerable that sleep with pastors. We cannot make a blanket statement that it is sex abuse.

    Is your whole problem with this post that it is a blanket statement? Maybe the title should have qualified that it is “often” sexual abuse, or “very well could be” or is “likely” or “usually” or “many times” or “most of the time”? “99% of the time”? Honestly, what a lot of nit picking. Many of us agreed in the beginning there are times it isn’t, but because of the power differential, it should be recognized that it is a very real possibility and the non-pastor party deserves the benefit of the doubt.

  101. refugee wrote:

    I haven’t even been able to convince my spouse why I object to Grudem and Piper. He read aloud to me (not my idea of fun) a whole section of Systematic Theology last night, to prove to me that Grudem was not teaching heresy, but good, solid stuff.

    Oh, please! No offense, but does dh believe you going to Heaven to be his little helper (ESS)? Are women eternally subordinate to men? That’s what WG says, so it must be good, solid stuff! Uhg!

  102. @ Friend:

    “He is receiving a great deal of feminine attention”
    +++++++++++++++

    i get the distinct impression Ed is enjoying this.

  103. Nancy2 wrote:

    refugee wrote:

    I haven’t even been able to convince my spouse why I object to Grudem and Piper. He read aloud to me (not my idea of fun) a whole section of Systematic Theology last night, to prove to me that Grudem was not teaching heresy, but good, solid stuff.

    Oh, please! No offense, but does dh believe you going to Heaven to be his little helper (ESS)? Are women eternally subordinate to men? That’s what WG says, so it must be good, solid stuff! Uhg!

    We were complementarian because the former church was, but our marriage was probably more to the egalitarian end of the spectrum. I’m sure our former elders would have said that was why we were having trouble, that dh needed to get his family better under control. They came right out and chided me for rebellion. (Code word for having a differing opinion)

    Actually, Grudem said in the book that he subscribed to (I think) Athenasius’ Creed, and so we read that aloud (it was quoted in the book) but it didn’t sound at all like ESS. So did Systematic Theology come before ESS?

  104. Yeah, I’m to the point where it feels like casting pearls before swine. Or trying to teach a pig to sing?

    Not name calling, just apt descriptions of the discussion.@ elastigirl:

  105. Daisy wrote:

    Ed Chapman wrote:

    Conclusion: All women who sleep with a pastor has a psychological problem, incapacitated, incapable of making a decision for themselves, because what sane woman would do such a thing?

    That’s not what I said.

    See my post here:
    http://thewartburgwatch.com/2016/10/03/its-clergy-sex-abuse-not-an-affair/comment-page-2/#comment-287525

    You are the one who keeps denying that there is ever a case of CSA, or you momentarily toss out “if he’s wearing a counseling hat” but then walk that back by saying, “But it still doesn’t count if she didn’t call the cops” etc and so on.
    But please see my post I linked to above in this post.

    No, I never said that I denied it. I said to PROVE it. Big difference. At this moment in time, these women do not fit the criteria that would make them a victim. There is no evidence. There is no evidence that the pastor was in a counseling role, there is no evidence of them being weak or vulnerable or incapacitated or mentally ill or anything else that would diminish their thinking capabilities.

    You must prove those things for it to be classified as CSA.

    Ed

  106. siteseer wrote:

    Ed Chapman wrote:

    There is no proof that pastors have power.

    The fact they have access to your information, control the narrative with the whole congregation, can turn all of your friends and even family against you, slander you in the community with impunity, destroy your reputation, and destroy your ability to make a living is not “proof” to you. I’m trying to figure out how you define “power”? Someone’s ability to hurt you and mess up your life is not power to you. Do you have another word for it?

    How about what happened to James Duncan? Was there a power differential between James and the pastor he ticked off or not? http://www.pajamapages.com/our-story/

    Ed Chapman wrote:

    Not victim blaming. There is no proof as to the existence of a victim, either biblical or legal, just because a pastor sleeps with a woman congregant, that is no proof.

    It is highly suspicious, because of the power differential. The person without the power deserves the benefit of the doubt.

    Ed Chapman wrote:

    It’s clergy sex abuse if the pastor has sex with a congregant.

    Why? Because she is weak and vulnerable, etc., etc.

    No, because the pastor holds much more power than the congregant does so that the possibility of manipulation and coercion need to be recognized.

    Ed Chapman wrote:

    My real conclusion: Not all women are weak and vulnerable that sleep with pastors. We cannot make a blanket statement that it is sex abuse.

    Is your whole problem with this post that it is a blanket statement? Maybe the title should have qualified that it is “often” sexual abuse, or “very well could be” or is “likely” or “usually” or “many times” or “most of the time”? “99% of the time”? Honestly, what a lot of nit picking. Many of us agreed in the beginning there are times it isn’t, but because of the power differential, it should be recognized that it is a very real possibility and the non-pastor party deserves the benefit of the doubt.

    See my reply one up.

    Ed

  107. Serving Kids In Japan wrote:

    Ed Chapman wrote:

    And the bible really does tell us what love looks like. But I don’t see much bible quoting going on, and I get slammed by many for bible quoting, showing me that they could care less at what the Bible has to say on the subject.

    I care very much what the Bible says, Ed. But I also recognize that there’s more to truth and wisdom — even love — than what is in the Bible. As much as we believers value God’s word, we can’t ignore real experiences (whether our own or those of others) which teach us truths that the Bible doesn’t cover. Just because it doesn’t say, “a pastor has power over congregants” doesn’t mean it isn’t true in the lives of real people.

    Please don’t dismiss victims of Tullian Tchividjian, Ed — and yes, I do view them as victims. Their experience is no less real for being out of line with your interpretation of the Bible. That is why I mentioned “Doctrine Over Person” in a previous comment.

    See my reply 2 up

  108. refugee wrote:

    Wait. I missed something. Who said that *all* women are victims?

    When it is stated that if a pastor has sex with congregants that it is known as clergy sex abuse…that is where the word “all” is implied, because that statement does not make exceptions.

    Ed

  109. Daisy wrote:

    I don’t know if Ed is still reading this thread or not, but if so.

    Ed is really preaching to the choir on some points.

    I’ve already said a few times here at the SSB Blog that I believe that in some cases a woman who sleeps with a preacher is equally responsible as the preacher is, and some of these cases can be considered a good-old fashioned case of run-of-the-mill adultery.

    But, it really depends on the context and the particulars of each case, something Ed doesn’t seem too interested in considering.

    Do me a favor, Daisy…Tell Julie Anne that in a private email. She disagrees with me when I say that.

  110. Serving Kids In Japan wrote:

    But I also recognize that there’s more to truth and wisdom — even love — than what is in the Bible.

    That’s what Catholic Tradition teaches, too. Bible plus.

    The Bible is the Word of God, and you are bringing in the word of man, because the Word of God isn’t enough.

  111. Ed Chapman wrote:

    That’s what Catholic Tradition teaches, too. Bible plus.

    But Ed, would you have even had your Bible (NT) without the early oral tradition of the Church, and the early Councils?

  112. The above debate has reached this, inevitable, point:

    The Bible is the Word of God, and you are bringing in the word of man, because the Word of God isn’t enough.

    There’s a great term for a fallacious debating approach, humorously observed by one Leo Strauss in 1951, called Reductio ad Hitlerum. It’s a play on the genuine logical approach known as reductio ad absurdum, or “reduction to the absurd” which means to disprove a statement by demonstrating that it necessarily implies something absurd or obviously false. Reductio ad absurdum is not necessarily personal; indeed, it can be used in mathematics as much as in philosophy or politics.

    Reductio ad Hitlerum IS personal, however, and it refers to the attempt to win an argument by comparing one’s opponent to – well, the clue’s in the title.

    I think it’s time we recognised a religious analog to reductio ad hitlerum: the claim in a debate between Christians that one’s opponents are rejecting the Bible, don’t care about the Bible, have a low view of scripture, despise the word of God, are exalting their own wisdom (or human wisdom in general) above the Word of God, or other words to the same effect.

    I’m not entirely convinced I’ve got this right, but I tentatively propose Reductio ad Liberalum.

    Reductio ad Liberalum is generally used by those whose view of scripture is so “high” that it has become grotesquely distorted to the point where they have rejected the Priesthood of Jesus (as God’s ultimate self-revelation) and the deity of the Holy Spirit. Though I’m open to correction on the grounds that this, too, is an unfair representation of their position and is therefore an example of Reductio ad MacArthurum.

  113. Ed Chapman wrote:

    That’s what Catholic Tradition teaches, too. Bible plus.

    Oh, Ed. If you personally accept the plain meaning of scripture as understood literally and if you personally do not accept any other source of knowledge than the scripture, then you surely must believe that the sun revolves around the earth since scripture says that it rises and sets.

    If you believe that penicillin has long been a treatment for ‘herpecificgonolitis’ (a made up word but obvious in meaning) which you surely must have seen in your compatriots during your military days then you got that information about penicillin somewhere but not from scripture.

    If you believe that your car has a battery, then you know that is not biblical. If you use a computer then you have gone beyond the knowledge contained in scripture to do so. I could go on all day like this, but you get what I am saying.

  114. refugee wrote:

    I was going to mention this, but you beat me to it. After reading through the old articles, I googled to find out what happened. He was convicted on five felony counts, I think, but only got a two year sentence. He helped some people legitimately, and targeted so many others. I wonder how he chose which to present his godly appearance to, as opposed to the others? He bailed some out of their economic problems and helped them get back on their feet, but for others, he fed their destructive habits in order to feed his own.
    I just cannot comprehend it.

    It is really sad about Richard (Dick Dansen) and what he did. I imagine his only getting 2 years in prison shows what can happen when one can afford to pay for a good defense attorney. Also with this person being a supposed pillar and successful businessman allowed him to get away with what he did for so long.

    He may have started out innocently helping people but sadly found that “money talked” and could get things he wanted that shouldn’t have been doing.

  115. Christiane wrote:

    @ Nick Bulbeck:
    Has MacArthur also become his own ‘god’?

    It’s more a case that John MacArthur believes in the sufficiencyOfScripture as an end in itself: that is, he argued (for instance) against the biblically-described gift of tongues, not by attempting to show that the Holy Spirit had stated he no longer wished to bestow such a gift, but by stating that the very existence of the gift would detract from the sufficiencyOfScripture. Even God Himself must be set aside, and His prerogatives revoked, in order that scripture may be revered and worshipped first.

  116. Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    I’m not entirely convinced I’ve got this right, but I tentatively propose Reductio ad Liberalum.

    Brilliant. I’ve only skimmed through the dialogue with Ed. Other thoughts came to mind:
    – Reductio ad Nauseam
    – Magnificatio ad Absurdum (magnifying the argument to the point of absurdity)
    – Magnificatio ad Nauseam

  117. Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    Even God Himself must be set aside, and His prerogatives revoked, in order that scripture may be revered and worshipped first.

    well, we know that MacArthur has CONTROL over what he says the Scriptures ‘clearly’ mean;
    but he has no control over God or the workings of the Holy Spirit

    it’s like the neo-Cal thing: to do their act, they first had to put Christ in His place ….. once they had done that, they were free to get on with THEIR agenda

    sadly, it isn’t so hard to figure out, is it?

  118. Ed Chapman wrote:

    The Bible is the Word of God

    That’s one interpretation. Actually, Jesus Christ is the Word of God – the Bible is very clear on this.

  119. Ed Chapman wrote:

    The Bible is the Word of God,

    That’s one interpretation. Actually, Jesus Christ is the Word of God – the Bible is very clear on this.

  120. Ed

    Your last comment is not approved. 

    Stop with the victim blaming. Yes, that is what you did. You do not know them or their stories. You go right on ahead and be the Christian who has it all together. I am sure churches love having you around to keep things in line.

    It is a good think you are “out of here and done!” I am so crushed…

    You need to know that I am putting you in moderation in case you get the urge to straighten us all up again. I know you have made a splash on other blogs. But there are many other blogs out there for you to tell them all how to be good Christians like Ed Chapman.

  121. Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    but by stating that the very existence of the gift would detract from the sufficiencyOfScripture.

    Really? This is why the ‘scripture only’ people bug me. They ignore wide swaths of scripture when they want to.

    Also, everything Okrapod said about the ‘all relevant knowledge is found in scripture’ people. That’s not the purpose of the bible. It’s guiding principles generally, not specifics.

  122. Ken F wrote:

    I did it again – replied without changing the identity to me instead of my wife.

    Nick B seems to walk into that one a lot, too.

    Best regards,
    God

  123. Lea wrote:

    This is why the ‘scripture only’ people bug me. They ignore wide swaths of scripture when they want to.
    Also, everything Okrapod said about the ‘all relevant knowledge is found in scripture’ people. That’s not the purpose of the bible. It’s guiding principles generally, not specifics.

    As I’ve often said, no preacher actually believes that scripture alone is sufficient. If he did, how would he dare presume to add his own words to the Sufficient Word of God as he preached? He would never dare to preach, but rather would open the Original Scriptures (in Hebrew, Greek or Aramaic) and read them in fear and trembling, lest a wrong emphasis in tone or inflexion on his part should alter and corrupt the Perfect Word of God. Then, broken and weeping, he would fall on his face before the congregation and beg them to call upon God the Holy Scriptures on his behalf, that the Scripture might have mercy on his presumption and pardon his sullying of God’s Perfect Presence.

  124. dee wrote:

    Ed

    Your last comment is not approved. 

    Stop with the victim blaming. Yes, that is what you did. You do not know them or their stories. You go right on ahead and be the Christian who has it all together. I am sure churches love having you around to keep things in line.

    It is a good think you are “out of here and done!” I am so crushed…

    You need to know that I am putting you in moderation in case you get the urge to straighten us all up again. I know you have made a splash on other blogs. But there are many other blogs out there for you to tell them all how to be good Christians like Ed Chapman.

    Dee,

    I know, I know…I’m sorry. Julie Anne has also put me in moderation. I do not normally go down this road ever, but this topic has got me so frustrated that I think of Cher in that movie where she slapps Nicolas Cage and tells him to “Snap out of it”.

    Anyway, my point was made, and I am continually getting backlash, and it is time for me to leave this topic.

    I talked to my brother in law about this, and he states that this is a situational thing, and should not be a blanket thing. So, I pressed it even further.

    Not a good idea.

    You did right thing by putting me in moderation. I need to “step away from my keyboard” for a while.

    You and Julie Anne do a great service for everyone. I mean no ill will to anyone. But I just can’t, in good conscious, change my mind on the topic of this post.

    Thanks for allowing me to post what I did, however. I never meant for this to be about “me”.

    But, you should also know that if people really would leave Calvinism, abuse would almost cease to exist.

    Respectfully,

    Ed

  125. Christiane wrote:

    well, we know that MacArthur has CONTROL over what he says the Scriptures ‘clearly’ mean; but he has no control over God or the workings of the Holy Spirit.

    This is the heart of it, I think. As Bruce Lee said to Bob Wall * in Enter the Dragon: Boards don’t hit back… And the Bible doesn’t talk back or defend itself against us; we can make it say whatever we want. And we can deny the same privilege to anybody else, simply by saying that they have misapplied or misinterpreted the scriptures.

    I’ve come to believe that, to have a truly high view of scripture is to give great weight to its command to give preference to one another in honour – a variant on “love your neighbour as yourself” – in acknowledgement of the truth that the Word of God is living and active, and is the property of no-one but God himself.

    The corollary of this is that, when anyone claims to have “a high view of scripture”, it means – more often than not – that they actually have a low view of it. They believe, in other words, that they have mastered it and it now serves them and sides with them against the rest of the Church.

    * This was all scripted, of course. The two were good friends in real life.

  126. Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    The corollary of this is that, when anyone claims to have “a high view of scripture”, it means – more often than not – that they actually have a low view of it. They believe, in other words, that they have mastered it and it now serves them and sides with them against the rest of the Church.

    I like that.

    Paul said we see now through a mirror dimly – my sunday school teacher said the original word is something like a puzzle? If you think you know all, you are ignoring that verse!

  127. okrapod wrote:

    Ed Chapman wrote:

    That’s what Catholic Tradition teaches, too. Bible plus.

    Oh, Ed. If you personally accept the plain meaning of scripture as understood literally and if you personally do not accept any other source of knowledge than the scripture, then you surely must believe that the sun revolves around the earth since scripture says that it rises and sets.

    If you believe that penicillin has long been a treatment for ‘herpecificgonolitis’ (a made up word but obvious in meaning) which you surely must have seen in your compatriots during your military days then you got that information about penicillin somewhere but not from scripture.

    If you believe that your car has a battery, then you know that is not biblical. If you use a computer then you have gone beyond the knowledge contained in scripture to do so. I could go on all day like this, but you get what I am saying.

    If Dee allows me to comment, here is my reply:

    I was not discussing those things. I was discussing Christian “behavior”.

    Ed

  128. Christiane wrote:

    sadly, it isn’t so hard to figure out, is it?

    I agree with what Nick and you are saying, but I want to take this sentence of yours for a jumping off place to say something which I perhaps should not say because I don’t want to hurt feelings. I am going to say and hint at some stuff and do it as delicately as possible.

    First off, this attitude toward spiritual gifts is not new and predated the calvinistas by a long time, and I think that there are other variables influencing it. I think this because of some things I heard and noticed and was actually taught ‘back in the day’. It is not just about God, the bible, the Holy Spirit, or much less about reason or experience.

    Back when the charismatic renewal first hit where I was and when I was some folks clung tightly to some cultural ideas about caste and class and had some nasty things to say regarding ‘them’ vs ‘us’. And no I am not talking about race; residuals of caste and class yet survive and some say this tends to have a certain rather unique appearance in the south. One of the identifiers of caste and class is to what extent one is emotional compared to what extent one is rational, the presumption being that the two are inversely proportional and of course the idea that men excel in one and not the other; the men of course being of a higher social order than the women. So, tongues for example is something ‘they’ may be doing and also something that silly women might do (quote chapter and verse here), but certainly the brightest and the best would not do. So, caste and class.

    There was also the issue that the catholics believe in miracles and such in their idolatrous ideas about saints, (I am just repeating the sort of thing I heard) and this whole business of healing and alleged miracles and such is just way too catholic and must be squelched.

    And lastly but not leastly people knew about old style pentecostals of course and everybody knew about women preachers in that tradition and that was proof positive right there that the whole thing was not of God. I mean, when one has sunk to some level below common decency like that, well, enough said. The common decency thing being that women preachers get up there and everybody looks at them while they try to tell everybody including the men what to do, and that is beyond tacky.

    So, yes to what both Nick and you said, but there is this also. And who knows what all else. And I know, I know, I was not delicate in what I said. I do think that the calvinistas and J Mac are doing what you all have said, certainly, but to some extent at least the older ones like JM may also be thinking some of these things which I have described.

  129. A small point, if I may:

    Although I quoted from Ed when I made my comment about Reductio Ad Liberalum, I removed Ed’s name from it because I don’t think Ed himself is fundamentally the problem here. I should have made that clearer.

    Years ago, some friends and I used to make convenient use of a notebook on the school pipe-organ * in order to “book it out” for practicing on. Inevitably, some written conversations – not unlike an online forum – also went on. One of them, which I started by means of a rather childish and gratuitous insult to one of my friends, rapidly got completely out of hand in a rather sad foreshadowing of much of the bottom half of the internet today. And yet, we were all friends IRL. So I know how easily this can happen.

    I don’t think Ed set out to make this debate what it became. In point of fact, I vaguely recall that his original point was that a clergyman having an affair with a parishioner (for want of better technical terms) may indeed perhaps be an affair, not abuse as such. I agree with this point: it may be an affair between equals in the general case. This case may, equally, involve vulnerability and/or a cultural power mismatch such that it does qualify as abuse.

    * It was quite an old school!

  130. Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    Lea wrote:
    Paul said we see now through a mirror dimly

    A good point – and he wrote half of it!

    Right? Paul said X, but Paul also never claimed to know everything, and he said you shouldn’t worship Paul. He also said love is not self seeking, which knocks out a good chunk of church and relationship issues. I think Paul gets a bad rap since people so misuse his words, but he was more clear on this stuff than most.

  131. @ Nick Bulbeck:

    Maybe he put it more strongly and said it can’t be abuse, but maybe that’s just where the debate ended up as it became more polarised. The same thing happened in the pipe-organ book incident whereof I spake: I can’t speak for my friends, but I said a lot of things I didn’t actually mean or intend to say.

  132. Ed Chapman wrote:

    Do me a favor, Daisy…Tell Julie Anne that in a private email. She disagrees with me when I say that.

    That’s not how you present your views, though.

    You keep suggesting there is no such thing as CSA at all, or apply such narrow parameters to it that cases of CSA are deemed to be only “adultery” to you.

    You refuse to recognize that a pastor can harm a woman outside of officially designated counseling times, to groom her outside of a church setting –

    He may call her at her home, send her texts over a phone, Facebook her, chat her up when he sees her at the parking lot at the grocery store, etc.

  133. @ okrapod:
    I’ve always enjoyed your frankness. What is wrong? If I have said anything that makes you want to walk on eggs here, please forgive me.

    as for ‘that big C-little c catholic thing about ‘miracles’, I suspect that with the addition of the richness of Irish blood into our catholic world, the Celtic line between the natural and supernatural worlds of God gets so thinned out that I myself have sometimes thought that even a blade of grass was a miracle of God. Catholics are incorrigible about seeing the Hand of God in everything good that is seen and unseen, I suppose. This sense of proximity to the sacred has got lost in the teachings of fundamentalist-evangelicalism as far as I can see, and I think it must be much missed by those evangelicals who have been gifted with a heightened sense of the spiritual realm.

  134. Ed Chapman wrote:

    That’s what Catholic Tradition teaches, too. Bible plus.
    The Bible is the Word of God, and you are bringing in the word of man, because the Word of God isn’t enough.

    That’s taking sola scriptura too far, though.

    When I wanted to add a RAM card to my old computer several years ago, the Bible didn’t tell me how to do that. I had to buy a computer repair book for that.

    Reading the Bible did not cure me of clinical depression – I had to read books by secular and competent Christian psychiatrists to be delivered of it.

    The Bible does not always neatly address and spell out any and every subject and problem people face in life.

  135. Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    I think it’s time we recognised a religious analog to reductio ad hitlerum: the claim in a debate between Christians that one’s opponents are rejecting the Bible, don’t care about the Bible, have a low view of scripture, despise the word of God, are exalting their own wisdom (or human wisdom in general) above the Word of God, or other words to the same effect.

    I’m not entirely convinced I’ve got this right, but I tentatively propose Reductio ad Liberalum.

    Reductio ad Liberalum is generally used by those whose view of scripture is so “high” that it has become grotesquely distorted to the point where they have rejected the Priesthood of Jesus (as God’s ultimate self-revelation) and the deity of the Holy Spirit.

    Though I’m open to correction on the grounds that this, too, is an unfair representation of their position and is therefore an example of Reductio ad MacArthurum.

    Good points.

    I respect the concept of sola scriptura, but I think some Christians sometimes misapply it.

  136. Ken F wrote:

    That’s one interpretation. Actually, Jesus Christ is the Word of God – the Bible is very clear on this.

    That’s another good point.

    I saw an online article that said some Christians have changed the Trinity from “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” to “Father, Son, and Holy Bible.” 🙂

  137. Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    In point of fact, I vaguely recall that his original point was that a clergyman having an affair with a parishioner (for want of better technical terms) may indeed perhaps be an affair, not abuse as such. I agree with this point: it may be an affair between equals in the general case. This case may, equally, involve vulnerability and/or a cultural power mismatch such that it does qualify as abuse.

    I agree. I stated the same thing earlier in the thread and Daisy agreed with me. But some people misused my comment. Unfortunately, online communication can be turned into a variable slush fund.

  138. okrapod wrote:

    First off, this attitude toward spiritual gifts is not new and predated the calvinistas by a long time, and I think that there are other variables influencing it.

    Maybe it’s just because I’m not attending an old school Calvinist church, but I think we err in attributing too many things to that line of thought. Obviously it has potential to go a lot of different ways in a church.

    I completely agree with you that class/emotions can be an issue, I think the YRR hatred of the word of faith is something about class lines, because they (YRR) consider themselves ‘intellectuals’ (and as you said, can translate into the unemotional place).

    Now, the staid mainlines are the ones accepting women preachers, so I don’t know if that was an association previously (women preachers/emotional charismatics) and maybe that’s changing or has changed entirely? There seems to be a bit of a contrary nature now in that ‘liberals’ allow women to head churches and accept gay marriage, so we have to go gangbusters in the opposite direction and allow women to do nothing. Very bizarre dynamics when you break them down.

  139. Ed Chapman wrote:

    I talked to my brother in law about this, and he states that this is a situational thing, and should not be a blanket thing. So, I pressed it even further.

    Now I’m confused as to where you stand on this.

    I was saying above that it’s a situational thing, you have to take each case on its own merits, to which you replied:

    Do me a favor, Daisy… Tell Julie Anne that in a private email. She disagrees with me when I say that.

    Source for that:
    http://thewartburgwatch.com/2016/10/03/its-clergy-sex-abuse-not-an-affair/comment-page-2/#comment-287668

    You appear in that post to me to be granting (agreeing with me) that each case should be judged on its own merits (which is situational), but now in this post to Dee, you seem to be saying, no it’s not situational?

    Or maybe I’m misunderstanding.

    My view is that it is situational.

    There might be some cases where it’s purely consensual sex, in which case both the clergy person and other adult are having what could be termed an affair and both are equally at fault.

    But, IMO, in the vast majority of cases, it’s probably going to be CSA due to the fact preachers are, whether you like it or not, regarded by many people as being friends, counseling figures, authority figures, etc,

    And so it’s quite easy for a preacher to exploit that trust to hit on women, especially women who he knows or finds out out are in a vulnerable point in their lives.

  140. Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    I don’t think Ed set out to make this debate what it became. In point of fact, I vaguely recall that his original point was that a clergyman having an affair with a parishioner (for want of better technical terms) may indeed perhaps be an affair, not abuse as such. I agree with this point: it may be an affair between equals in the general case. This case may, equally, involve vulnerability and/or a cultural power mismatch such that it does qualify as abuse.

    I agree with all that, too. That is pretty much my position on this topic.

    There may be some cases where it’s an affair (equal responsibility) but others where it’s abuse.

  141. Ed Chapman wrote:

    That’s what Catholic Tradition teaches, too. Bible plus.
    The Bible is the Word of God, and you are bringing in the word of man, because the Word of God isn’t enough.

    One other thing I wanted to add about that.

    Even conservative Christians who adhere to sola scriptura disagree with each other as to how to interpret the Bible.

    Christians from different churches and denominations are regularly disagreeing with each other over theological matters.

    Conservative Christians who believe in sola scriptura are using their own beliefs, life experiences, education, assumptions, and intellect when determining how they best feel a biblical passage should be interpreted.

    So I don’t think one can entirely remove the human element from understanding or interpreting the Bible. In that sense, Christians are adding “man made” stuff to the Bible, in a manner of speaking. IMO.

  142. Bridget wrote:

    I agree. I stated the same thing earlier in the thread and Daisy agreed with me. But some people misused my comment. Unfortunately, online communication can be turned into a variable slush fund.

    Myself and a few others have granted the point that some cases of a parishioner sleeping with a preacher might be a case of adultery (both parties are at fault).

    I think that where the confusion comes in (just a guess) is that Ed does not concede that there is a power imbalance at work with clergy-parishioner relationships-
    Such that CSA (Clergy Sexual Abuse) does not always initiate or take place within the confines of offcial Counseling Sessions only.

    A pastor can use his unofficial power and influence and place of trust in the minds of his church members or community to prey on women in his church, even when those women are not at church or not in a counseling session.

    I think Ed would classify those situations as being “adultery” or “fornication,” where-as to me, they would fall under CSA.

  143. Daisy wrote:

    But, IMO, in the vast majority of cases, it’s probably going to be CSA due to the fact preachers are, whether you like it or not, regarded by many people as being friends, counseling figures, authority figures, etc,
    And so it’s quite easy for a preacher to exploit that trust to hit on women, especially women who he knows or finds out out are in a vulnerable point in their lives.

    A Post Script to that point.

    I’m talking from a moral, not legal, perspective.

    States who have laws about CSA might only define CSA as being CSA when it occurs in counseling, when a woman makes an appointment with her pastor to meet him in his church office to talk about her personal problems.

    I am not talking legally, how the law defines CSA.

    I’m looking at it from a moral position, I guess.

    My understanding of CSA might be broader than what some states define it as. I think Ed keeps wanting to point to how some states have defined CSA.

  144. Daisy wrote:

    So I don’t think one can entirely remove the human element from understanding or interpreting the Bible.

    There is a sense that the sacred Scriptures work on us when we encounter them. I have it on good authority that a close encounter with the Holy Gospel of St. John has led many people to return to Christ. There are many people who will tell you that they have been brought under conviction by reading from the sacred Scriptures.
    I would never open the Bible lightly, without thinking of its sacramental aspect, that because it is inspired, God can and does use it to open our hearts and to change us profoundly for the better.

    A favorite prayer from the words of the prophet Hosea, before reading from sacred Scripture:

    “Break up your fallow ground,
    For it is time to seek the LORD” 🙂

  145. Daisy wrote:

    Ed Chapman wrote:

    Do me a favor, Daisy…Tell Julie Anne that in a private email. She disagrees with me when I say that.

    That’s not how you present your views, though.

    Daisy,

    Yes, it is. If you go back to every single one of my comments on this topic, whether it be here, or on SSB, you will see that I am stating that criteria must be met. First criteria is that counselor hat.

    Second criteria is the diminished capability where the other party cannot think for themselves in order to make a rational decision.

    If none of those criteria can be met…then what?

    It is apparent that we do agree that there are cases of it being the run-in-the-mill adultery.

    But for it to be that, in our agreement, how do you come to YOUR conclusion that it can be adultery?

    My response to these are residual remnants of conversation before I agreed to step away.

    Take Care, People, and God Bless

    Ed

    You keep suggesting there is no such thing as CSA at all, or apply such narrow parameters to it that cases of CSA are deemed to be only “adultery” to you.

    You refuse to recognize that a pastor can harm a woman outside of officially designated counseling times, to groom her outside of a church setting –

    He may call her at her home, send her texts over a phone, Facebook her, chat her up when he sees her at the parking lot at the grocery store, etc.

  146. @ Lea:

    Think era. I was born during the depression, grew up during WW II, graduated from high school in 1952. This was significantly before the cultural revolution in this country, before the charismatic renewal, before the conservative resurgence and get this, it was before a time when most people had TVs in their homes-at least where I lived. The first time I had actual access to a TV was in the nurses dorm in 1953. And it was also before Vatican II which changed the catholic church in a lot ways. Things were so different I cannot even explain it. This nation has changed soooo drastically since then that I live here as an alien in my own native land. I kid you not. But at the same time I do not think that cultural ideas just totally evaporate in a short period of time. A fair amount of the thinking of ‘back when’ is still around but just dressed in different clothing for every day wear.

  147. okrapod wrote:

    Think era.

    I know you’re older than I am. I think the historical perspective is very interesting. What I was getting at is I think the perceptions have been shifting, I guess? So from women preachers are charismatics to women preachers are liberals. But still, the key things is that women shouldn’t be preaching, whatever the reasons. That is constant.

  148. Dee,

    There is something extremely important to acknowledge. We have people, such as Daisy, and Nick and others that are indeed recognizing that this can be, as Daisy puts it, a run in the mill case of adultery on the woman’s part.

    BUT, and this is the most important:

    How can they agree on that, if everyone agrees that a pastor has a, by default, a “power differential”, which would never ever make this a case of a run in the mill case of adultery.

    They can’t have this both ways. Either the pastor has a power differential, or he does not.

    The case being made by some is that since the pastor has a power differential, it is always considered abuse.

    And yet, you have some here that are willing to concede that it might not always be abuse. So, in those cases, how can the pastor, by default, have a power differential to begin with?

    So, it should make people think, for a moment, that pastors do not always have a power differential, and if so, when do they not have that power?

    Respectfully,

    Ed

    I’m not asking for this comment to be posted.

  149. Holy Guacamole Batman! 700 and some comments on this one! Another TWW barn-burner for sure.

  150. Lea wrote:

    So from women preachers are charismatics to women preachers are liberals.

    I apparently was not clear. I was not starting from the issue of women preachers, I was starting from the issue of anti-charismatic thinking. I don’t think that anybody ever started with women preachers and said they must therefore be pentecostals; at least I never heard it. I was saying that the pentecostals did have women preachers and that was one thing some people disapproved of. I need to be clearer.

  151. Ed Chapman wrote:

    But, you should also know that if people really would leave Calvinism, abuse would almost cease to exist.

    Ed, I appreciate your thoughtful tone. I am not saying any more about the recent discussion. But I did want to question this point?

    I have left calvinism, having only been exposed to hyper-calvinism. But I keep hearing people refer to “old-style” Calvinists who are loving and respectful. And also, I don’t think Robert Morris is a calvinist; though I have not made a study of him, what I have read makes it sound like he’s more of a word-faith type. (Please, somebody, let me know if that’s wrong.)

    And yet, we hear of mind-control techniques and abuses coming out of his arena … which Mark Driscoll has now been welcomed into! I wonder if Driscoll renounced calvinism, and if as a result, his abuses will stop? (Sorry, that was borderline sarcastic, not aimed at you — some dear friends were damaged by Mars Hill.)

    I think the problem is that “abuse would almost cease” sounds too much like a blanket statement to me. For one thing, abuse would still continue at places like Gateway and non-calvinist IFB churches. (I don’t seem to recall Gothard being a calvinist, though he is a legalist.) For another, those kind-and-gentle-not-hyper-calvinists keep popping up.

    Calvinism — specifically, the teaching that God creates people with the actual aim of condemning them to eternal torment — even though there are bible verses that seem to say that, it’s enough to shake my faith in a kind and loving God. When a Calvinist starts to tell me how kind and loving God is, that he reaches out and saves *some* — all I can think of is those poor souls who never had a chance. (My spouse has tried to engage me with a discussion of something called “secondary” something-or-other in which supposedly people have a choice, so they really condemn themselves, but that doesn’t make sense to me; it doesn’t sound like calvinism and determinism and pre-destination and an omnipotent deity to me.)

    So I’m with you, there. But, like you, I’m bothered by blanket statements.

  152. @ refugee:
    p.s. Is Robert Morris the preacher who threatens people with a curse if they don’t tithe to his church, or to the church where he’s invited to speak as a guest?

  153. okrapod wrote:

    I need to be clearer.

    Eh, maybe I do. I got what you were saying I think, I was just riffing on that particular thing and going off in my own direction.

  154. refugee wrote:

    But I keep hearing people refer to “old-style” Calvinists who are loving and respectful.

    I don’t agree with all Calvin’s points, but I think the old school kind of Calvinists are ok people. There are plenty of kind caring old school Calvinists.

    I disagreed with Ed about this, but I didn’t want to get into a big rigmarole again 🙂 I think you can find abuse in any setting, but some twists of theology make it easier. Fundamentalists can be non-Calvinists but still terribly abusive.

  155. refugee wrote:

    p.s. Is Robert Morris the preacher who threatens people with a curse if they don’t tithe to his church, or to the church where he’s invited to speak as a guest?

    I believe so. Morris also has a daily show on TBN network which I’ve watched several times.
    He also says if you don’t tithe, your marriage will fall apart.

  156. @ Lea:

    You have a lot of good perceptions. I seriously benefit from what you write. I would be wandering around pushing a grocery cart with all my belongings if you people who have had different life experiences were not here and talking. I do so appreciate people’s patience and people’s insights.

  157. Lea wrote:

    Fundamentalists can be non-Calvinists but still terribly abusive.

    It strikes me as funny that our hyper-calvinist former church looked down on “fundamentalists” as uneducated hicks — and yet, they seemed to fit the mold, in retrospect.

  158. @ refugee:
    (I meant, our former church seemed to fit the “fundamentalist” mold as I’ve seen it described here and other blogs, not that fundamentalists fit the “uneducated hicks” mold. Hope that’s clear.)

  159. Ed Chapman wrote:

    if people really would leave Calvinism, abuse would almost cease to exist.

    If people would leave all churches run by narcissistic and/or authoritarian regimes, and deny and decry malignant ministers, regardless of the theology, then yes. But as spiritual abuse survivor blogs have amply demonstrated, significant forms of abuse show up in *every* theological system. If you find a theological view that is without instances of spiritual abuse, that would be newsworthy. But even the peace-making theology of the Anabaptists has had to deal with this, in the sexual harassment situations of their preeminent theologian, John Howard Yoder.

  160. Christiane wrote:

    What is wrong? If I have said anything that makes you want to walk on eggs here, please forgive me.

    You have not. I am just trying to be half way civilized.

  161. refugee wrote:

    Thanks, Brad/Futuristguy. That was part of what I was trying to say, only you said it in a more detailed, informed manner.

    🙂 Because I work in researching or summarizing case studies instead of just reading about the principles, I’ve been finding specific situations pretty much across the theological spectrum. I listed a few starter points on that subject in this section of the article below that I posted a few months ago: 3. “The Grid of Background Factors” – and How Spiritual Abuse isn’t Found Only in One Kind of Theology.

    https://futuristguy.wordpress.com/2016/05/10/project-update-may-2016-part-1/

  162. @ Nick Bulbeck:

    You do not flaunt your credentials/CV enough. People forget. Remember that he who tooteth not his own horn, the same shall not be tootethed.

  163. okrapod wrote:

    You do not flaunt your credentials/CV enough.

    You’re very kind, but if you’d said, Spoken like a Cambridge Don – that would have been different!

    😉

  164. Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    if you’d said, Spoken like a Cambridge Don – that would have been different!

    Don’t count on me. I don’t even know what a Don is. But I did think that you had said at one point ‘my Cambridge degree’ something or other, but I was not sure. So I spent some time looking for the comment, could not find it, grew frustrated and thought oh well maybe I should gently chide him regarding excessive humility-or something. This way it is not Muff’s fault or my fault, you have only yourself to blame. What do you think? Neat trick or what?

  165. @ okrapod:

    I did refer to it, yes; on the LittleOldLady thread. Very neat trick!

    There’s an even neater trick to finding stuff, using an advanced google feature. You type:

    site:thewartburgwatch.com “Cambridge degree”

    into google. In fact it works for any site; the word “site”, with a colon (no spaces) and the site address (without the www); then the search term. Google will search only that site for the search term. I’ve used it more than once to find Wartburg comments!

  166. Just an update, my ex pastor is now advertising himself as a forgiven entrepreneur, real estate investor. “I love to help other leaders to suck less and lead more.” Anyone want some leadership tips?? Crazy world! Let me know if you want a consultation!

  167. Kim rung wrote:

    Just an update, my ex pastor is now advertising himself as a forgiven entrepreneur, real estate investor. “I love to help other leaders to suck less and lead more.” Anyone want some leadership tips?? Crazy world! Let me know if you want a consultation!

    Sounds like he should be in Sex Addicts Anonymous and have a rock solid sponsor, as well as go to a treatment program.

  168. He used to make fun of people and felt very special. He told me he knew he would be great someday…..I could never understand what that meant. I could only try to think he didn’t mean exactly that.. Sociopaths think so different than most people. I have learned so much. Velour wrote:

    Sounds like he should be in Sex Addicts Anonymous and have a rock solid sponsor, as well as go to a treatment program.

  169. @ Kim rung:

    Hi Kim,

    Yes. Sadly you learned so much. I haven’t read the entire thread here for a few days since the debate raged on and I’ve been on the other threads.

    If you had some take away information, hindsight being 20/20, from your experience of being subjected to clergy abuse…what would it be.

    I know that you said you would never utilize Nouthetic Counseling again. (I’m with with you and my ex-church practiced it and I thought it was very dangerous, incompetent, rife with malpractice issues, and of course the boundary problems that it creates.)

  170. Kim rung wrote:

    Just an update, my ex pastor is now advertising himself as a forgiven entrepreneur, real estate investor. “I love to help other leaders to suck less and lead more.” Anyone want some leadership tips?? Crazy world! Let me know if you want a consultation!

    It reminds me of Dustin Boles letter- similar temperament? Similar issues?

    Kim, it sure is hard to imagine how different people like that think until you get to know one up close. Once your eyes are opened, though, it all makes sense. I don’t think they have any clue how the rest of us think, either, it makes no sense to them, they just see it as weakness they can use against us.

    Thanks for stepping out for the sake of others.

  171. You are probably right. This man nearly destroyed a church, scarred a community(he was a radio pastor too), sent people straight to hell, broke up families, destroyed dreams but instead of taking on a quiet respectable profession and it has only been 18 months, he resurfaced “I love to help leaders suck less and lead better”. It makes me want to throw up. siteseer wrote:

    Kim rung wrote:

    Just an update, my ex pastor is now advertising himself as a forgiven entrepreneur, real estate investor. “I love to help other leaders to suck less and lead more.” Anyone want some leadership tips?? Crazy world! Let me know if you want a consultation!

    It reminds me of Dustin Boles letter- similar temperament? Similar issues?

    Kim, it sure is hard to imagine how different people like that think until you get to know one up close. Once your eyes are opened, though, it all makes sense. I don’t think they have any clue how the rest of us think, either, it makes no sense to them, they just see it as weakness they can use against us.

    Thanks for stepping out for the sake of others.

  172. Kim rung wrote:

    Just an update, my ex pastor is now advertising himself as a forgiven entrepreneur, real estate investor. “I love to help other leaders to suck less and lead more.” Anyone want some leadership tips?? Crazy world! Let me know if you want a consultation!

    Oh, that is ridiculous.

    Reminds me of the disgraced pastor Mark Driscoll who was invited to speak at some church’s “Leadership Conference” several months ago, and I think the topic was “How to be a good preacher” or whatever.

  173. Ed Chapman wrote:

    you should also know that if people really would leave Calvinism, abuse would almost cease to exist.

    I started in an IFB way back in my beginning- it was extremely abusive. The pastor of that church actually ended up serving time in jail along with an elder or two. Another church I went to was regular Baptist, I ended up getting shunned by them due to a piece of gossip about me that someone made up. Another church I went to started out Baptist but went NAR, and that one became very abusive. (I did also go to a couple good churches through the years, lol.)

    I don’t think doctrine is the issue, I think the real problem is authoritarianism. Anywhere you get a hierarchy of power, you get abuse, it seems like. And it’s not necessarily spelled out in the doctrine, sometimes it’s more of an unspoken tradition, or it’s kind of hidden in the doctrine.

  174. Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    The corollary of this is that, when anyone claims to have “a high view of scripture”, it means – more often than not – that they actually have a low view of it. They believe, in other words, that they have mastered it and it now serves them and sides with them against the rest of the Church.

    The pastor of the IFB I went to used to say to anyone who questioned or disagreed with him, “you can think what you want, and me and God will think what we want.”

  175. siteseer wrote:

    The pastor of the IFB I went to used to say to anyone who questioned or disagreed with him, “you can think what you want, and me and God will think what we want.”

    That is repulsive!

  176. siteseer wrote (quoting a former salaried clergyman):

    “you can think what you want, and me and God will think what we want.”

    Assuming the statement is not meant to be comedy, I could make it entirely accurate by adding just one word and two punctuation marks, thus:

    “you can think what you want, and me and my “God” will think what we want.”

    Obviously, I envisage this god as being very much like Mr Hat from Southpark.

  177. That is a loaded question. All of this is hindsight. To respond in a few words….. I will do my best. 1. Find out what the pastoral turn over is. My church was every 5 years. 2. A church that has to have the children sit with the parents because no one wanted to help in that ministry. If it is an unhealthy church the ministries will be unhealthy. 3. If Leaders on first meetings start blaming the people for all the mess it is a unhealthy environment. An organization mimics the leadership not the other way around. 4. If a pastor tells you that because of your encouragement, service, and words you have helped him stay I ministry, run. He should be there because of his commitment to his calling. 5. If a pastor encourages or allows those he leads to work until exhaustion and doesn’t shepherd in a way that encourages their famillies it is an abusive church. My pastor argued with me when I cried out in exhaustion. He said that I was going against God’s will for my life. Run and take care of yourself. 6. Never as a woman, trust a pastor with anything you wouldn’t trust a man at work, social circles, etc. If He hadn’t been a pastor he would not have ever had access to my heart over my trauma and brokenness. I always had those boundaries with the men in my life. 7. My church had me write my thoughts down as a female worship leader to have the men on the platform to read until my 6th year of leading. I was told to be submissive to those men placed to watch out for my soul and to not cross unbiblical lines of male leadership. I tried to obey this. Never go to a male leadership dominated church. 8. A pastor should never share his counseling confidences with you as his special support with his “difficult job” of shepherd. You are not helping, you are abetting an unethical counselor. 9. A pastor should never place a female congregant in the role to keep him from leaving ministry. He thanked me all the time because he just couldn’t handle the role without my help. Just let him go. I thought God was using me to help his leader. 10. If you have found yourself to have trusted to a dangerous level and gone over boundaries your pastor encouraged don’t be afraid to get help to break the emotional dependency from a licensed counselor. You will need support to break the attachment. Once you are ready, expose the wolf. If I could have done that years earlier it wouldn’t have ever gotten as far as it did. 11. You need to speak up if this has happened to you. You are not alone and are not to blame. But if we keep quiet, we will be inadvertently allowing another victim we could have saved. It is a bold move and I wouldn’t suggest it without intense therapy and some time to heal, but speak out and block all the voices but “The Voice of Truth”. Casting Crowns sings this amazing song of truth. 12. If you can help get laws on the books, join with the victims and help. I could go on and on but this is where I will leave it. My prayer is for church to someday be the light, salt, spiritual encouragement it is meant to be. May God bless all who hear the truth in the clutter. ❤️ Kim Velour wrote:

    @ Kim rung:

    Hi Kim,

    Yes. Sadly you learned so much. I haven’t read the entire thread here for a few days since the debate raged on and I’ve been on the other threads.

    If you had some take away information, hindsight being 20/20, from your experience of being subjected to clergy abuse…what would it be.

    I know that you said you would never utilize Nouthetic Counseling again. (I’m with with you and my ex-church practiced it and I thought it was very dangerous, incompetent, rife with malpractice issues, and of course the boundary problems that it creates.)

  178. http://www.divorceminister.com/a-conspicuous-absence-in-pastoral-training/

    My comment to Divorce Minister/David’s article:

    “I was shocked by the fact that my former pastors/elders at a NeoCalvinist church (seminary: John MacArthur’s The Master’s Seminary in California) had NO training in the “big issues”: mental health, child sexual abuse, child abuse, alcoholism, drug abuse, domestic violence.

    Their Nouthetic Counseling was beyond dumb, it was dangerous. A woman alcoholic’s (widow) problems were treated with Scripture verses, and all of the problems she caused at church, instead of being referred to a physician who could have supervised her treatment for alcoholism. My ex-pastors/elders damaged her, her adult children, and church members by not dealing with the real issue: substance abuse.

    Another woman with a brain disorder and memory problems was treated with Scripture verses and others were blamed for the problems she caused. OK, she has a genetically inherited brain disorder (Dyslexia) and memory problems that require medical care.

    What are these seminaries doing to not do all kinds of training in the big subjects that will come up time and time again in Christians’ lives and their families? I have no respect for them.”

    Divorce Minister/David’s comment to me yesterday:

    “Yale Divinity School required a brief education on Ministerial Sexual Misconduct to graduate. I supplemented my education there with outside education on mental health issues and spirituality. Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) is a good way to become better educated and trained to deal with these issues. But many evangelical seminaries treat CPE with suspicion as a “liberal” vehicle (and sometimes it does have a liberal bent, to be fair).”

  179. @ Divorce Minister:
    This is a great article on the abuse of power involved in clergy sexual abuse. It is refreshing to hear this coming from a male pastor. Thank you so much for this truth, DM. God’s blessing to you in your ministry!