Here we go, folks.
Take note of the following in this video.
- The victims have now reported to this to the police. (More on this tomorrow.)
- Tha pastor admits that abuse happened and he didn't know he should report it.,
- The law, at the time of the abuse, required the pastor to report this abuse.
- The pastor did not admit his daughter was dating Chris Carwile.
There is more to come. More news reports are expected this evening.
Thank God for the City of Memphis and their rapid response to this report. Thank you to the victims. They are my heroes.
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Good work!
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@ Ken F:
Thank you. More to come. I have never seen this quick of a response.
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“The pastor admits that abuse happened and he didn’t know he should report it.,
The law, at the time of the abuse, required the pastor to report this abuse. ”
At least the Church can make a beginning to see that all SBC and other Church organizations’ pastors KNOW the law. It won’t guarantee they will all comply with the law, but it will make it impossible for pastors to use the ‘I didn’t know’ card which apparently some are currently doing to save face.
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So, he fired him for “general allegations of inappropriate touching.” Obviously, he knew it was serious enough to fire the dude….
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dee wrote:
Lucky timing. I saw an article on this earlier today, so I knew you would be on it this evening. I am very thankful to see this coming to light.
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Where is the annual training for this?
There is no excuse for a lack of training.
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Come on. How stupid is this pastor. It’s out on the media everywhere that you have to report sexual abuse. He was just trying to keep himself from getting in trouble. I’m not buying it for one minute. He knew he had to report it, but didn’t. After all it would bring such bad publicity to his church. “We must protect the church at all cost”. That seems to be their motto.
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dee wrote:
Could it be that there are other reports on this guy, which is why this investigation got started and publicized so quickly? Maybe public records exist?
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Whooooooo Hooooooooo!!!
Power to the ABUSED!!
Strongholds of darkness coming DOWN!!! (2 Co 10:4)
Go Local News 24. S. W. E. E. T.
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@ Ken F:
We were discussing this possibility the other night! You need to be a potentate on this blog.
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@ Harley:
You can be sure the victims are not buying this either.
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Harley wrote:
I don’t buy it, either. The pastor was worried enough to call the legal beagles at the SBC.
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@ Divorce Minister:
There is more to this story. His daughter was allegedly dating Carwile and he allegedly showed up at the church now and then but he was not officially hired.
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Any church without a policy on handling child abuse incidents is head-in-the sand crazy.
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@ drstevej:
Even if they have a policy, many of them ignore it in my experience.
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He DIDN’T KNOW HE WAS SUPPOSED TO REPORT IT??????
This person was either ignorant or stupid!!
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Tina wrote:
There is always the “lying” option as well.
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Didn’t know he hadta’ report it huh?
Will this be the watershed case in which a senior pastor goes down for complicity?
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@ dee:
No backbone. Moral compass missing – from a so-called spiritual leader. Not.
Every time a pervert is predatory in a church, it becomes the litmus test for the true moral fiber of that local institution, mega or small, and in particular, their leadership, both lay and ordained.
What if the predator was dipping paws into the offering plate? Would leadership call in the Law? Guns a-blazing and values on display.
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Divorce Minister wrote:
That sounds like that George Carlin bit about going through Catholic School, with all the semantics required to go to Confession without admitting to anything.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK5YGWS5H84
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Tina wrote:
There are other options but it is a sad testimony that the two options you provided represent giving him the benefit of doubt.
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Bill M wrote:
3rd option: protect his paycheck and do everything he can to keep it from going public.
Well, it’s public now!
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Great work Dee and Deb!
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GMFS
There is Christian trend that is surprisingly widespread but, by its very nature, is less famous. Ministers, elders (and especially plural elderships) and similar who are fulfilling their roles properly, don’t try to make themselves famous and they don’t usually become famous.
Rather than one person ruling the roost, or a randomised lowest-common-denominator form of democracy, these settings have elders that don’t lord it over those around them (notice I didn’t say “under”). But they do work diligently at being an example to the flock (this from 1 Peter 5). They don’t treat their fellow-believers as infants or pets who need to be controlled, but neither are they blown and tossed by every competing demand from church members with strong opinions.
These elderships understand a simple but profound truth that is so far beyond the comprehension of celebrity CEO pastors they scoff at the very idea of it. That is, a true team does not need one person in overall charge all of the time – and this does not mean that “nobody’s in charge”. These elderships recognise that, at any one time or on any one matter, a given person’s expertise is at the fore and this person needs to be trusted and submitted to by the others.
In particular, there will be somebody who properly understands what it takes to protect children and vulnerable adults. They’ll keep up to date with relevant legislation and best practice, and they’ll be taken seriously both among the elders (or whatever label they have) and in the congregation at large.
Those congregations will always be despised by the Driskles of the world. But they should be sought out.
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dee wrote:
There are official and unofficial policies. If the unofficial policy is wrong the response will never be right. That’s what we need to work on.
Excellent job with this! So glad it’s getting attention. I wonder if Memphis was already sort of primed after the Rick guy accusations?
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I can only imagine and wonder (1) how many church-funded attendances at denominational conferences the pastor was present for if/when resolutions on child abuse were being passed or discussed, (2) whether the legal responsibility to report child abuse was taught as part of his curriculum at Anderson Baptist Theological Seminary, (3) if any TC@SF organizational docs (I.e. Employee handbook) addressed the requirements reporting of child abuse and/or (3) if anyone in the leadership of the currently merged church would be held accountable for not fulfilling their legal duty and responsibility to report the abuse to legal authorities.
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From the OP:
I suppose that this is his watered down mea culpa. However, ignorance is no defense. If Tennessee is a mandatory reporting state then the pastor committed a mistake of law and should be held accountable for it.
One question that will need to answered, if possible, was whether the pastor intentionally withheld the reporting in order to subvert the law (regardless of whether it was to shield the guilty or to protect his and/or the church’s reputation). If the act of withholding was done intentionally then he would be more culpable than if he did not intentionally withhold the report in order to subvert the law.
Either way, though, he broke the law and should be held accountable in some form.
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Tina wrote:
“I KNOW NOTHINK! NOTHINK!”
— Sgt Schultz
(Johann Banner, I’m getting a lot of mileage out of your most famous character tag line…)
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Nancy2 wrote:
That says everything right there. AND it also puts light on the failure of the SBC to take their responsibilities to Southern Baptists seriously: the organization ‘looks away’ from the wrong things these days, as some in my Church did, and the consequences are horrific. The SBC has a moral obligation as an organization to act on behalf of educating its member Churches. The SBC ‘legal staff’ can keep it from losing money from lawsuits, but the legal eagles cannot prevent the public’s loss of trust when the truth comes out.
Why this failure? What CAN be done to foster educating pastors whose Churches are ‘members’ of the SBC??? The organization has a moral and ethical obligation to take action to educate member pastors …. there is a HIGHER law. And failure to act means the good possibility of continued abuse cover-ups.
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Tina wrote:
If it were his own child, would he have acted then?
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Christiane wrote:
That “Higher law” in the SBC is wimmens cain’t be pastors! If an SBC church hires a woman pastor, it usually gets kicked out of the SBC. If there is child abuse, adultery, or male-on-female abuse going on, they look the other way. Covering for a pedophile is nowhere as sinful as having a woman pastor!
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@ Nancy2:
And yet, a woman pastor’s instincts to PROTECT children from harm at all costs might have saved many little ones and young people from the horror.
That all-male boyz-club buddy system has gone too far. The ‘looking away’ is participating in the abuse of children. The ‘failure to report to authorities’ is participating in the abuse of children. No excuses. Not in ANY denomination, least of all my own Church. It needs to be dug out and exposed: root and branch
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Bridget wrote:
I put my money on this one.
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Nick Bulbeck wrote:
That sounds like Christianity to me. The real kind.
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JYJames wrote:
It probably depends on how important the paw dipping bandit is to the pride . .
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Nick Bulbeck wrote:
Whether an elder or not . . .
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Burwell wrote:
Tennessee is definitely a mandatory reporting state. I’ve lived in Memphis for more than 30 years. Back in the late ’80s I was doing volunteer work for a crisis pregnancy center and that was part of our training.
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Nancy2 wrote:
SWBTS was promoting a panel discussion at the Evangelical Theological Society on “Trinity and Gender” that happened last night. Participants included proponents of ESS and Complementarianism. My theory has long been that the CR was more about keeping women in their place and that they using their doctrine as a means to an end.
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Christiane wrote:
My church has women as pastors and I certainly support that. However. It is too easy to say it is only women’s instincts to protect children. (someone gave an example recently of one who didn’t as well) It is most GOOD men’s instinct too!
The problem is that something has gone dangerously awry with the morals in the church, too many churches! Where is that breakdown? Education alone does not seem to me to be enough. What is needed is that we ruthlessly root out anyone who protect the church and themselves above children.
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Bridget wrote:
Yes. Smart leaders are willing to realize 1. they don’t know anything and 2. LISTEN to the people who actually do. And learn.
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@ Lea:
Sorry, I meant they don’t know ‘everything’. Not anything. Hopefully most smart leaders do know something 🙂
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I d don’t get it! He didn’t know he should have reported it? What a load of crap! !! I’m so sick of these men who call themselves elders /pastors playing dumb. If he’s lacking common sense and discernment then he has no business leading anyone in ministry, priod!
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Lea wrote:
no one who sheilds predators is ever ‘protecting the Church’, if nothing more, my own Church has learned this truth
Children cannot be harmed within the Church and not have it hurt the whole Church (and the extended Body of Christ) ….. the work of satan can only harm the Church and drive people away …. satan works also to drive people away from ‘church’ by giving them an excuse to use to condemn all of the Church instead of just condemning the abuses of those who harm children and those who ‘cover it up’ and move predators around to harm children in other settings.
Satan is pretty good at using evil to attack the Church on many levels. And the Holy Spirit is pretty good at strengthening Christian people to realize what satan is up to, and to direct people to call upon Our Lord to ‘deliver US from evil’.
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Christiane wrote:
The “church” as an institution, not the church as a people.
They think they are protecting the institution or the priests/pastors from a loss of respect and/or money. They are not focusing on the people in it. This is the whole problem!
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Nancy2 wrote:
Take heart Nancy2. As I’ve said here before — and it makes no difference if it’s SBC or even Billy Bob’s Bible church down the road a piece — this cast-in-concrete-gender-based-role-doctrine will not see the 22nd century.
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Christiane wrote:
@ Lea:
I stand by my original statement. I think your theology about ‘the Church’ and the Body of Christ must be very, very different from mine, of course, but I see efforts to denigrate the WHOLE Church as the work of those whose goals are the opposite of the goals that the Holy Spirit has for the Church as founded by Our Lord. The Church was ‘instituted’ by Christ Himself in the sense that He founded it and organized it and having set it up, sent the Holy Spirit to govern it and sanctify it. Our Lord claims the Church as His own when He says to Saul “Why persecuteth thou Me?”, as Saul had been ardently seeking to destroy the early Church before his conversion.
We see things differently, yes.
I see tremendous good in the WHOLE Church even though many of its family are apart from one another. I see the whole Church united in Christ Who founded it.
Maybe we disagree on the meaning of the word ‘institution’ as it applies to the organization Our Lord founded. ?
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Lea wrote:
It seems like as soon as a church has bills and salaries to pay, there is a subtle but basic conflict of interest. The organization must be kept going or people stand to lose- a lot. We depend on people to place honesty and the welfare of others above that conflict but, because of human nature, in many cases it doesn’t work out that way. In any church, there are also a lot of people who have a large stake in the church’s success and naturally, they shrink from the embarrassment of an incident like this in the community. It seems like the larger the church and its financial upkeep, the bigger that conflict of interest grows.
In seeing how big the problem of pedophiles in the church is, I’m starting to wonder how many churches out there have an incident like this in their past. Many? Most? I know that one church I attended did the same thing with a youth pastor that was molesting girls and I wouldn’t have known about it except someone in leadership confided it to me- only those involved in the situation were aware of what happened and they were pressured to keep it quiet “for the good of the church.” The members who did not have kids in the youth group had no idea and even those with kids in the group didn’t get the complete story; the idea was that the girl who spoke up had been equally at fault for seducing the guy.
I wonder if once churches are held to mandatory reporting we will see how common the problem is and if the stigma may lessen for any particular church?
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@ Lea:
@ Christiane:
Maybe we’re talking about two different churches here. There is THE Church, instituted by Jesus and the in dwelling of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost; then there is the church, as defined by certain men. I think Christiane, I think you are referring to the true Church. Lea, I think you are referring to the church defined/dictated by certain men. If so, that makes you both right.
The church defined by certain men (SBC, ARC, etc.) are for-profit business institutions, now. They are all about peddling/protecting whatever/whoever they have to in order to keep their pay checks and keep women beneath them.
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@ Nancy2:
Dear NANCY TWO …. blessed are the peacemakers 🙂
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Christiane wrote:
Obviously. You apparently hate when I talk about it this way, but I don’t know how else to say it. Pastor bob is trying to protect ‘first Baptist of whatever’ from scandal. The Catholic Church was trying to protect the Catholic Church from scandal. Whatever that means, that’s how I think THEY see it.
That doesn’t mean I think they are doing good by covering things up. Obviously. It seems like you are reading me that way.
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Christiane wrote:
But that doesn’t mean that the church of Ephesus (or what have you) was not it’s own thing, set up by individuals. Paul was trying to protect individual churches by giving them advice, as much as he was trying to protect ‘THE CHURCH’ large.
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Lea wrote:
The early Church WAS organized by the Apostles and by those who sat at their feet. The Apostles produced ‘the deposit of faith’ that was handed down from them to those who followed them and those followers guarded that deposit of faith with great care.
If the early Church hadn’t had this kind of organization with an oral teaching and later a written teaching of ‘the deposit of faith’; the Councils could not have verified the canon as the New Testament.
Your idea of ‘separate’ Churches seems very strange to me. I know only the Churches founded by the Apostles (and that includes St. Paul) and their followers: they were unified and organized, sharing the writings that would later become the gospels and the epistles. They had the same way of praying. They had a similar pattern of worship: first ‘the Service of the Word’ and afterwards, ‘the Eucharistic Service’.
Rather than fracturing into ‘man-made churches’, the Church grew tremendously by the witness of the blood martyrs and the work of the Apostles and their followers. And we still have ‘the deposit of faith’ today thanks to their work.
No, I don’t know your man-made ‘churches’ that varied from the Apostolic teaching unless you are referring to the heresies that came later . . . and the Councils dealt with them, even though today it seems that ESS as a form of a very early heresy is attacking the SBC.
If you can, take a look at Church history from scholars who are well-known, and not ‘Christian lite’ or ‘fundamentalist’. Here’s something about St. Paul’s journey to found churches:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qUW7IxapdU
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@ Christiane:
Diotrephes founded a “church”.
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Christiane wrote:
They were physically separate. They were full of completely different people.
Yes, they were all the same religion. They got letters from Paul and shared as well as was possible for people who were physically separated by a lot of distance and low technology, but they obviously were separate places.
This just seems hair splitting to me. Even the catholic church is one big ‘church’ made up of a bunch of little churches. Can you not just understand that I am talking about the specific church and not the wider one?
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Lea wrote:
I think it is a matter of how we view the ‘separate’ Churches, parishes, dioceses, etc. …. not as ‘separate’ in the same way you see a Baptist Church.
If I go into my Church, I am in THE Catholic Church.
If I go to another parish and kneel down to pray, I am in THE Catholic Church …… we have a different way of viewing our unity, I suppose. We have a saying: wherever Christ is, there is the Church.
I have read about how ‘separate’ the SBC Churches are, but I never did ‘get it’, LEA, probably because I am from a different tradition entirely. I don’t suppose I am ABLE to understand this in the same way that you are explaining it and I am sorry for it, yes.
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Christiane wrote:
It’s what the Pope says it is.
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i’ll go out on a limb and say all believers agree that wherever Christ is, there is the church. there is no need to manufacture any quarrel here.
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elastigirl wrote:
Thank you, Elastigirl.
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elastigirl wrote:
That’s not a limb at all elastigirl, in my opinion it’s a foundation (wherever Christ is) dug down to bedrock.
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elastigirl wrote:
I haven’t read through this whole thread, so I’m not sure what all this is about, but your comment looks about right to me.
The Bible says any one who is a believer in Jesus is a Christian and is part of “the church.”
And to be in that church, one does not have to attend or be a member of ANY denomination.
One doesn’t have to be a Methodist, Baptist, Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, etc, to be a part of “the church.”
You can sit at home every Sunday, never become a member of any group of other believers, and still be in “the church.”
That’s the church universal.
Then, a lot of us tend to refer to a local gathering believers as “the church” too (or “a” church), and the brick and mortar with steeples, pews, and stained glass as being “a” church.
The Bible says all believers have the Holy Spirit inside them, which is one thing that makes them a part of the church.
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@ Daisy:
“That’s the church universal.
Then, a lot of us tend to refer to a local gathering believers as “the church” too (or “a” church), and the brick and mortar with steeples, pews, and stained glass as being “a” church.”
+++++++++++++++++++
and to affirm leah’s comments, The Church (catholic, baptist, presbyterian, pentecostal, etc.) is represented by local gatherings / individual churches. each is a unique living organism, comprised of a unique group of individuals with a unique set of circumstances.
lofty ideals aside, the leaders of each outpost have a vested interested in making sure it remains ‘in business’. As Cyndi Lauper croons, “MONEY….. money changes everything.” We could write a chorus 2: “POWER…..power changes everthing.” And we could ignore cadence and write a chorus 3: “personal SigNIFicance….. personal sigNIFicance changes everthing.”
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FW Rez wrote:
Is this Twitter feed related to that? Someone named Mark Jones seems to have offered running commentary on the ESS debate, and apparently is much less than impressed with Grudem and Ware.
https://twitter.com/Mark_Jones_PCA/status/798620023229018112
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Serving Kids In Japan wrote:
WOW. Thank you for linking to that. I’m so glad this is all coming out into the open. Grudem and Ware need to repent.
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@ elastigirl:
My disagreement is this declaration:..
“The early Church WAS organized by the Apostles and by those who sat at their feet. The Apostles produced ‘the deposit of faith’ that was handed down from them to those who followed them and those followers guarded that deposit of faith with great care.”
Knowing what we know about the Diaspora in Jerusalem during Pentecost, I don’t think this view can be so declarative. It plays into the Apostlic succession view that the only legitimate “church” is that which has such a beginning and a succession.
The declaration from “Christ” being the unifier changed to that which the Apostles “handed down”. Does it have to be both?
I think it was much more messy, disorganized and free wheeling than that as the Diaspora packing out Jerusalem made their way home after Pentecost.
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Lydia wrote:
Yes, the statement DOES rather support the concept that the Apostles and their followers were guided by the Holy Spirit Whose intense mission points always to Christ, the source of their unity. I would say that the idea of the Church, incorporated by Christ and blessed and strengthened under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and then becoming nothing more than a divided and weak entity in its earliest days is a myth from people with an agenda that opposes the concept of the ‘Deposit of Faith once given to the Apostles by Christ’, yes indeed.
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@ Serving Kids In Japan:
Wow. So anyone think the Grudem, Mohler, Moore cabal can still take over ETS? I am heartened there are some left who will dare take them on. I read Giles’ books and knew they would have no problem discrediting him in those circles because he is egalitarian and connected the reason for the promotion of ESS with their pet comp doctrines. He also showed how the “scholar”, Ware edited Anthanasius quotes! Yikes.
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@ Christiane:
The Holy Spirit and the Apostles are not the same thing. You keep emphasizing one thing over another depending on what is said. My point are the Diaspora who traveled home after Pentecost cannot be discounted. It was huge. They did not take Apostles with them to every single region or city.
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Lydia wrote:
YES, it has to be both. That core of the faith was handed down and protected and defended during the Councils of the Church. We also know that it was the unity of the prayers and readings in the early day as done THROUGH OUT Christendom over time that gave credibility to which writings were accepted into the New Testament canon as a part of what Our Lord and the Apostles handed down faithfully. When you denigrate the ‘deposit’ of faith as shared and protected by the early Church,
you undermine the credibility of the work of the Councils in researching which writings WERE used throughout all of Christendom over time from the days of the Apostles until the formation of the canon.
Reject the ‘canon’ and you question your New Testment’s validity. And saying that the early Church had little organization or unity denigrates the very grounds that the Councils used to verify what writings had been used consistently among all the branches of Christianity over a period of time.
When you enter the rabbit hole of a ‘weak, disorganized’ group of man-created churches in the early days,
you lose touch with your own inheritance which is protected for you in the credibility of the sacred New Testament which has within it enough information for people who read it to be guided to Christ. It contains the written tradition of the ‘deposit of faith’ from the Apostles and those who sat at their feet. I wouldn’t be so quick to denigrate the work of the early Church, Lydia.
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You would think that when more than one young person came to a pastor to tell him that Carwile had ‘touched them inappropriate’ (molested them),
the the pastor would realize something was amiss.
I think the pastor KNEW. I think he knew, and he chose to look the other way, and keep silent.
And the boys suffered and suffer still.
But these young men will give good example in their courage to speak up and they will inspire other victims in church settings to speak up.
Who will give good example to the pastors of those churches? Not the SBC. (I did gratefully read Christ’s reply to my question.) No, I believe Christa, who has more credibility with me than any pastor who ‘doesn’t realize he has to report the victimization of the young in his church at the hands of one of his employees’.
For those three men, I pray for healing and renewal. And I applaud their courage to speak. It WILL help others. And that makes a difference.
Paedophiles thrive in the darkness and in the silences of victims and those who ‘look away’. Once the light is shone on them, and the silence is broken, the perpetrators have lost their predatory advantage.
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But Memphis is one of the buckles on the Bible Belt. Cops and DA are going to have an uphill fight trying to lay hands on one of God’s Anointed(TM), and there’s always the possibility of Jury Nullification a la O.J.Simpson.
“TOUCH NOT MINE ANOINTED! DO MY PROPHET NO HARM!”
— Benny Hinn
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Bridget wrote:
Like a Pastor’s Pet.
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What really gets me is that REAL cases of sex abuse at places like Highpoint are largely being ignored, while at the same time internet mobs are concocting FAKE claims about child sex rings being based out of a Washington D.C pizzeria (to the extent that one guy brought an AR-15 into the pizza joint, pointed it at an employee and then fired off some shots. Fortunately no one was hurt, but lots of people at that restaurant and other businesses nearby were terrified).
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MidwesternEasterner wrote:
‘internet mobs’ ….. a.k.a. the ‘Flynn Gang’ ? 🙂