An emission nebula. 170,000 light-years away. NASA
“I have learned now that while those who speak about one’s miseries usually hurt, those who keep silence hurt more.” – C.S Lewis
This is a perplexing and infuriating story of a pastor credibly accused of child sex abuse. Here is an introduction to Clay Corrigan from Focused Community Strategies (FCS.)
Shelley and Clay Corrigan have big hearts. When they saw the plight of thousands of abandoned orphans in Haiti, they simply had to do something. Something radical.
They packed their essential belongings, cashed in their very modest life savings, bought plane tickets, and headed straight into the most destitute place in the western hemisphere. They signed on with an orphanage, immersed themselves in the language and culture of the Haitian people, and took immediate steps to adopt one of the orphan children.
During the adoption process, the director of the orphanage asked them if they would be interested in meeting the child’s mother. The question stunned them. They had assumed that the child’s parents were dead or missing. In fact, the little tyke’s mother came regularly to visit him. Of course they wanted to meet her!
“Why do you want to give up your child?” they questioned the mother when she came for her next visit. “I don’t want to give my baby away,” the young woman responded emphatically. But she had no way to care for him, she explained.
She had no job, could barely find scraps of food for herself, squatted in a make-shift lean-to beside a disease-ridden dump. This was no place for a child, she said with obvious emotion. In the orphanage, at least he would be safe and fed and maybe have a chance for a decent life. But, no, she really did not want to give up her baby.
Soon after, Clay and Shelley created The Apparent Project to help bring jobs to this impoverished nation. They created a business involving jewelry.
In 2008, Shelley, the Apparent Project founder, and her husband moved to Haiti with their two biological children. This provided an opportunity for the child they were adopting to become part of their family right away.
They had accepted a job as house parents at an orphanage and were in charge of 25 boys aged 7 to 17. What they soon discovered was that all the boys had parents who loved them, but the parents didn’t have enough money to feed them.
People with a pioneer spirit and a belief that parents should be able to keep their children wanted to help. Jewelry was produced, carried in luggage & distributed all over the States! In 2009, a business formed & grew exponentially after the 2010 earthquake! People were desperate to help a country that was so devastated. And Haitian artisans had a chance to become skilled at jewelry making.
In 2013, Shelley resigned as the head of the project to focus on production.
Eventually, there was a need for a legal Haitian production company in order to provide consistent income for the Haitian artisans. In 2011, a production company was created. By the end of 2013, Shelley needed to focus full-time on production, so she resigned from Apparent Project. Marilyn Monaghan became the Director of Apparent Project. She had already been facilitating the distribution of Party Boxes & Fundraisers all over the USA since the end of 2010.
This all sounds wonderful, and it is. The project is still ongoing. But something was going on in the Corrigan household. It is alleged that Clay sexually abused a child. The Daily Beast posted a copy of the indictment. Here is part of it.
Clay allegedly abused a child in his home from 2014-to 2017
Yahoo posted the Daily Beast article: American Pastor Who Adopted Haitian Orphans Charged With Child Sex Abuse
Clay sexually abused the unidentified child from January 2014 to December 2017, the indictment states. No further details are provided in the filing, except that the alleged victim was under 18. But Clay’s ex-wife, with whom he had two biological children in addition to the pair they adopted, told The Daily Beast on Friday that the illicit conduct involved one of their own kids.
Shelley divorced him about a decade ago (@2012.)
Clay allegedly began abusing the child in 2014, after the divorce.
Shelley Jean Clay, who split from Clay more than a decade ago and now operates a Haitian-focused crafts market in Florida, declined to provide further details about the allegations, emphasizing that she was not involved and had no idea what was happening.
“It was my child, but I don’t think I am at liberty to talk about it because the court case is in process,” she told The Daily Beast.
Clay left The Apparent Project in 2013.
He parted ways with the organization in 2013,
In 2016, the “couple” started a preschool for children and added a kindergarten in 2017
OK, Dee is confused. Clay is alleged to have “parted ways” from the project in 2013 but is still helping along with his ex-wife. Why are they are called a couple?
By 2016, the couple’s “desire to continue their care increased,” and they opened the “AP Preschool,” according to the post.
“The year was a success, and in 2017, we added our AP Kindergarten,” it explains. “The goal is to grow with our AP children by adding a class to our school each year! And… to provide quality education, along with character development based on Biblical principles! We are working to raise leaders who will be able to bring positive change to their world!”
By this time, Clay had already been abusing his victim for roughly three years, according to the feds.
Clay says their project was allegedly backed by big names in the US.
According to Clay, in a web archive from Regent College:
Clay was living in Pittsburg when he was arrested. His ex-wife is living in Florida
According to the Pittsburg Post Gazette, in Ex-pastor in Pittsburgh was indicted on child sex charges in Haiti, Clay is living in the US.
Corrigan Clay, 43, who had been living on Robinson Street in Oakland, was arrested last week by federal agents and was due in court in Pittsburgh Tuesday for a detention hearing, but the case has been pushed back until Monday at the request of his lawyer.
…The case is being prosecuted by the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section of the Justice Department.
At some point, his ex-wife moved to Florida.
Shelley Jean Clay, who runs a market selling Haitian-made art in Florida, did not respond to a messag
Clay has long been a tattoo artist.
According to his website, Mr. Clay is an artist by training who ran a tattoo parlor in Haiti called Ayiti Ink & Image from 2009 until 2020. He said he originally trained as a painter with a degree from Seattle Pacific University.
The site also identifies him as a filmmaker who has focused on promoting projects in Haiti and helping orphans in that nation.
Clay Corrigan has a website that presents his body art business.
Here is a link to his bio on that site.
He claims to have started his tattoo business in Haiti in 2009 and ran it until 2020
So he did this business while being involved in the Apparent Project.
Corrigan owned and operated Ayiti Ink & Image, Haiti’s first official tattoo and piercing shop, from 2009 until 2020.
…Originally trained as an oil painter with a Bachelor’s Degree in Visual arts from Seattle Pacific University,
…Corrigan is a former pastor with a Masters of Arts degree in Theology and the Arts from Regent College, Vancouver, B.C.
He also claims to be a filmmaker.
Corrigan’s own film work has focused on promoting underfunded projects in Haiti providing care for the elderly, offering medical care in remote areas, and helping create greater understanding of the orphan crisis in Haiti.
I can find no record of him working as a pastor except for this cryptic entry on a Google search.
Final thoughts
I have become concerned about the number of American pastors/parachurch workers going overseas to work with young children. Some may be doing this so they will have unsupervised access to children. I wish there were some way to monitor their actions more closely. I have pondered ways to make this happen, but I have not developed a solution. In this case, Corrigan and his wife went there on their own accord. Clay had reportedly received an inheritance from his father and used it to fund the venture, so there was probably no oversight.
Sometimes, I feel helpless and perplexed. This week, in a Lent service, the pastor discussed 2 Corinthians4:7-9 NIV
7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from Godand not from us. 8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.
On my way out of the church, I told him that the word “perplexed” often describes me. My pastor said he thinks it represents most people. So I leave this story with you with no solution except to say I hope justice will be served.
PS I wonder if he could do a “Daughter of Stan” tat?
First! But I’m here to check on John MacArthur.
Ted,
I have failed you!
“I have become concerned about the number of American pastors/parachurch workers going overseas to work with young children. Some may be doing this so they will have unsupervised access to children.”
Ya think?
Adults who have an affinity to “help” minors while crashing boundaries… red flag.
Jerry Sandusky “helped” young boys via his non-profit… in the shower?
Cosby was to jumpstart girls’ showbiz careers … with a drugged dinner in his home?
Missionaries lack surveillance while working with vulnerables … a catastrophe set up to happen.
Meanwhile, with the Pipers theologize that God forbids women civic authority over men, and the Wilsons historize that slavery was good, so the platform of white men rule, get/do whatever they want, with God’s authority… goes on in evangelicalism.
Go ye into all the world, spread misogyny and racism and predation, subjugating in the name of God… the mantra.
Re: the seemingly inconsistent information about status as a “couple”, I have noticed from observation that sometimes estranged couples remain legally married for tax purposes, and sometimes they continue to cooperate for business reasons. One could imagine that ministry fundraising agendas could also be relevant. Some funders might not want to fund a self-described Christian entity led by a known-to-be-estranged couple.
—
Re: the problem of predators self-selecting for “ministry” to vulnerable populations, one can hope that advances in secular understanding of brain function and “varieties of ways of being fallen” (sadly, it seems that this problem, which surely has been present from ancient times, is unlikely to be solved from within the churches) will lead to reliable diagnostic tests. One could imagine that something like functional MRI to correlate areas of brain activation (enjoyment versus revulsion, for example) with the character of presented visual stimuli might help to identify people at risk of temptation to exploit the vulnerable.
The thought occurs that such diagnoses would be useful in wider contexts than the churches, too. The problem of the more powerful exploiting the less powerful is widespread.
Church theme, church practice.
Jesus lifted the exploited. The religious elite executed Jesus.
** And… to provide quality education, along with character development based on Biblical principles! **
Am I the only one who cringes when something is described as “Biblical”?
Cynthia W.,
Nope.
Good Lord! A pedo-pandemic in “Christian” organizations?!
Another sad story in the news today … https://www.ky3.com/2022/04/09/9-more-lawsuits-filed-against-agape-boarding-school-cedar-county-mo/
Dee said:
—Nah, Julie Roys has him covered…
… apparently with no fear of God. We need some Ananias and Sapphira moments to break out across Christendom. “And great fear and awe gripped the whole church, and all who heard about these things” (Acts 5:1-11).
“I have become concerned about the number of American pastors/parachurch workers going overseas to work with young children. Some may be doing this so they will have unsupervised access to children. I wish there were some way to monitor their actions more closely”
I’m puzzled. As far as I can tell from the info here, this guy wasn’t actually a pastor or parachurch worker. He seems to have misrepresented himself as one, but traveled and worked as a private citizen. How could anybody except the people who hired him locally have kept an eye on him?
“I have become concerned about the number of American pastors/parachurch workers going overseas to work with young children. Some may be doing this so they will have unsupervised access to children.”
I have a feeling that a multitude of angels have been assigned jobs at the millstone factory in Heaven … going to need a bunch on Judgment Day! Hopefully, judgment for these bad-boys will be two-fold … on earth and in Heaven.
That word has been used and abused as much as “Christ-centered” and “Christ-follower”
2 Corinthians 4:7-9 NIV
“7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.”
During my long tenure on planet earth, I have experienced all these things and have know His “all surpassing power” to deliver me from the valley. Growing old ain’t for sissies or for those who don’t know the Lord. Knowing Jesus has truly been my treasure in this old jar of clay.
” … While “Serving” in Haiti …”
“Serving” … “Called” … “Anointed” … are just words if they don’t have the fingerprints of God on them. Many failed ministers and ministries have been sheltered by such words, until their sins were revealed.
Off Topic.
I haven’t yet read the post or the comments….I just wanted (for any number of reasons) to post this video and its description. Many of you will likely have seen at least part of it….
Pink Floyd – Hey Hey Rise Up (feat. Andriy Khlyvnyuk of Boombox)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saEpkcVi1d4
From the official Pink Floyd YouTube video page of Pink Floyd – Hey Hey Rise Up (feat. Andriy Khlyvnyuk of Boombox):
Max,
I have had similar thoughts…. I am , personally, really uneasy about “teaching” in a church… I take the treat of what will happen to “false teachers” very seriously…
And I know enough to know that teaching “plane simple meaning of scripture” is not necessarily “plane and simple”…
researcher,
I am so grateful. Slava Ukraini!
Until evangelical sending organizations & churches do a thousand times better protecting children, they will continue to be pedophile playgrounds. These degenerates are becoming bolder as some academics & mental health professionals argue that being a “minor-attracted person” is a legitimate sexual orientation.
Jeffrey Chalmers,
Threat…. Not treat…. Interesting screw up
There’s another red flag here. I have never seen another tattoo artist who wasn’t covered. Looking at pictures of him I can’t see any tattoos!
I just keep thinking what an awful situation for the ?wife. TBH you would have no option but take the kids to the embassy to get them on US territory and get out of there.
OTOH, some with power, platform, and position do NOT take their actions seriously…
“Why do the wicked get away with despising God? They think, ‘God will never call us to account.’” Ps. 10.13
God cares, He really does, and sometimes life is a Hebrews 11 faith journey.
“Therefore since we are surrounded by such a great crowd of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders, and the sin that so easily entangles. Let us run with grit the race marked out for us, focusing on Jesus, our hero of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and landed at the right hand of God’s throne. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not lose heart.” Hebrews 12
Watching the church crumble into evil*, we identify with Jesus who was executed by the religious elite.
I’m reading Matt Goldman’s novels about the showbiz LA moneyed, and imagining that the showbiz church moneyed live similar bizarre lifestyles: Falwells & poolboys, etc. What power & money without God do to the human soul.
The RC church has used psychological assessments for many years, not always successfully because obviously predators lie, and some people with personality disorders think everyone lies anyway so will pass with flying colours. Looking at released clergy files of abusing priests I have always been impressed that inpatient facilities get to an accurate risk assessment. So perhaps assessments and ongoing meetings for longer psychological assessment would give better results.
My impression is that churches generally don’t understand that you can predict human behaviour (I’m a former mental health nurse and have always had a special interest in risk assessment) and current practice tends to be driven by wanting to look like you’re doing something and pressure from insurers.
There is a gadget called a penile plethysmograph used in forensic mental health which actually does what you say but it’s more invasive than would be suitable for ministry training and the candidates would be within their rights to refuse.
First off, maintain intelligent social boundaries in any church or religious environment. Dial up skepticism. To the max. Question. Use critical thinking. Always.
There are big name local leaders that we don’t even watch online due to their propaganda & persuasion in building their dynasties (megas). Too much. Hang on to your heart and your wallet when they take the mic.
There was no way to supervise the Corrigans because they went as independent missionaries. Mission board and church supervision aren’t perfect, either, but they can help to sometimes detect people who are off. I knew of one missionary when I was working overseas who was quickly collected and sent home to headquarters because something “bad” happened, bad as in sexual. When you’re a lone ranger, no one can really tell you what to do.
Dee’s not the only one taking note of people moving abroad to work with children for nefarious purposes. Those countries being targeted are taking note, too.
I was an ex-pat teaching English in South Korea in 2006-2008. During my last semester there, the Korean government tightened up the laws for hiring foreign English teachers. I no longer remember specifics of what changed, but the school I worked for didn’t get their act together in time and hired someone (an American) illegally, skirting the new visa requirements. And he came to school high on something one day and molested a child in the middle of class.
Not that the new laws would prevent everything, but they at least would have made it more difficult.
There were many things about Korean culture that I found challenging, as a Westerner. But, generally speaking, the culture treasures its children, and I admired this. And I am glad that, as a country, it was taking steps to strengthen protections.
But are there donor supporters?
Supporters are complicit.
If you have as many donors as some people have, you might never know what they’re up to, whether they are independent or are with an organization. I had at least 100 donors when I was overseas, and that wasn’t as many as others I knew. It’s the same for people in large churches where a leadership member is in sin. The average attender may very likely have no idea anything is wrong.
Wild Honey,
Unfortunately tightening the laws is only effective if there are resources to enforce the law. South Korea would be in a much better position to handle this problem than, say, Haiti.
The average attendee donor has no idea anything is wrong… until they do know exactly what is wrong. Then what?
– Applause for the predator?
– Show up in Court and support the predator not the victim?
– Back the predator as they rebound and start up a new ministry?
That’s complicit.
Every week church predators are exposed for who they are. What are church donors doing about it?
Are they complicit, or committed to Jesus?
In the echurch this week, Dee posted a video with Dr. Langberg. Dr. Langberg says that she was told (by her supervisors) as a practicing psychologist to NOT listen to hysterical women/girls who spoke of being violated.
When has “the average church attendee”, your words, been attentive to those violated by the leaders they financially support?
Supporting predators is complicit.
Cynthia W. on Sat Apr 09, 2022 at 07:51 AM said:
Am I the only one who cringes when something is described as “Biblical”?
No you’re not.
Doofus after doofus will claim ‘Biblical’ when they want to advance an agenda.
Though during my time in-country (mid-Seventies to early Eighties) the word wasn’t “Biblical”, it was “SCRIPTURAL”.
And the Thoughtstoppers were proof-texted Verse after Verse after Verse.
“SCRIPTURE! SCRIPTURE! SCRIPTURE! SCRIPTURE! SCRIPTURE!”
Muff Potter,
“Biblical” is the proverbial club to hit any over the head with that disagrees with you..
That’s because the Rules of CELEBRITY are in effect for both.
If “Biblical” means “can be supported by something found in the Bible, then it has to mean pretty much anything at all.” The same if it’s understood to mean “righteous as defined by me.”
I think “Biblical” was the favored term by the 90s, or maybe there’s regional variation.
Sums it up.
If it’s true what Goldman writes about LA in his novels as a slice of real life (he lived in LA and wrote for Seth Meyers, Seinfeld, Larry David, etc.), then the celeb culture is bizarre beyond imagination. I just read “Dead West”, set in LA.
3 examples of churchgoers’ complicity with predators.
It’s a thing. Churchgoers drive the getaway car for the felons, in these examples.
Cynthia W. on Sat Apr 09, 2022 at 07:51 AM said:
“Am I the only one who cringes when something is described as “Biblical”?”
+++++++++++++++
no.
although i’m amazed at how few people recognize (1)the logical impossibility of it [there are apparently at least 101 versions of “biblical” all in direct contradiction with each other];
and (2) how it is weaponized to stupidly attack and demean each other, because only “they” are right and everyone else is wrong, therefore missing the heavenly cut (being scary goblins of some sort ‘n all)
how proud Jesus must be.
Ava Aaronson,
When I in 7th grade, and attending a fundamentalist Baptist school, I remember the preacher of church hosting the school would preach about sexual immorality allot, yet drive a big Cadillac and was obese. Now, I am not here to go off on Cadillac’s and obesity, except that even as a 13 year old I was beginning to recognize “selective” reading/enforcement of some scripture at the expense of others… While we were not poor, the Cadillac really “stood out” compared to all the other pew peon cars, AND when we had pot luck lunches, good old “Wild” Willard Martz ( the nick name kids gave the preacher) really helped himself to seconds of the cherry pie!
As you can see, I was becoming a “pain in the a$$” back then!!
Then they don’t have ears to hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church! To not have a clue is to be clueless about the things of God … to know what is and what isn’t of God. Yep, the problem with the average church is an abundance of average attenders! A counterfeit pulpit gets away with way too much sin because of average attenders … “So because you are lukewarm (spiritually useless), and neither hot nor cold, I will vomit you out of My mouth [rejecting you with disgust]” (Revelation 3:16 AMP).
Where in SK did you teach, Wild Honey? Our older son taught and lived in Gimhae, next to Busan. He loved it. The kids were great, and the area was beautiful. There was a mountain right outside his apartment building — separated from his apartment only by a small park. He used to hike there just about every day.
He had the requisite Visa and TEFL certification, as well as relevant past experience (he’d already spent a year teaching ESL in Tianjin, China). Plus, there were CCTV cameras in all the classrooms. So, yes, the SK government is quite careful!
Remember the Unsaved/Heathen in all those Jack Chick tracts?
Not so much “scary goblins” as “Orcs dipped in dogsh*t”.
And after you’ve been hit over the head again and again and again with The Bible Club, you get to the point where it’s all BS from Day One.
All kinds of things can be called biblical:
Biblical marriage is marrying your half sibling or your rapist.
Biblical geopolitics is genocide.
Biblical family planning is having hundreds of wives and concubines.
Biblical manhood is raping a woman and getting her pregnant, trying to cover it up, killing her husband husband when that fails, and then marrying her to include her in your already large harem (or is that Biblical marriage?).
I think I should stop…
Praise God for the New Testament and the Biblical turn of events! They lived like hell in the Old Testament!
Jeffrey Chalmers,
Larger than life, 2-pie-slice guy.
The pedo-predators seem to just shuffle around, cat-and-mouse with the DOJ or surveillance.
Anderson Cooper did a report on Disney’s “child sex predators,” warning parents about the shocking “pattern of theme park employees arrested in sex stings.” Comments were that since the RCC clamped down on priests, the pedo-predators had to go somewhere.
Apparently there will always be pedo-predators, who roam in seek of an easy access hunting ground. It’s going to be where there are kids, obviously.
Time to get the pedo-predators out of the church. Church should be the strongest not the weakest link in our society.
So then there’s the shuffle from local in country ministry to overseas missions, for the pedo-predators camouflaged in church, the ministry collar.
Wolves in sheep’s clothing? Nah, the wolves have found it better to wear shepherd’s clothing.
As the church goes, so goes the nation.
Some of that was by God’s will, though, right? Eye for an eye, collective punishment, Noah’s ark… We cannot blame the people of Israel for everything we dislike in Hebrew Scripture.
You’ll never find me ever cursing Israel … the people or the nation.
No, of course not, Max. That’s not where I was going with my thought. But those old laws came from somewhere. I was raised to think that Jesus came to free people from the excessive obedience to the old laws, and the story of healing on the Sabbath bears that our. Later, though, I came to think that this line of thinking was dismissive of Judaism, and also to realize that those old laws came from somewhere. Why did God let people live so long under laws so cruel?
These days I have a real problem with the story of Noah, among others. I do not believe in the literal Flood, and I also don’t think a loving God would drown everybody and everything. The story does not work for me as history or as principle.
“Before the coming of faith we were all imprisoned under the power of the Law, with our only hope of deliverance the faith that was to be shown to us. Or, to change the metaphor, the Law was like a strict governess in charge of us until we went to the school of Christ and learned to be justified by faith in Him. Once we had that faith we were completely free from the governess’s authority.
For now that you have faith in Christ you are all children of God. All of you who were baptized ‘into’ Christ have put on the family likeness of Christ. Gone is the distinction between Jew and Greek, slave and free man, male and female — you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, you are true descendants of Abraham, you are true heirs of his promise.”
(Galatians 3:23-26 Phillips)
Max,
Thank you, Max. I still can’t accept that people needed one thing up until a certain time. Did God improve? Did people see the light in the form of Jesus? Are people better now? Do we always get the God we deserve?
I was looking at an inscription in a Jewish cemetery, a marker for the death of a small boy (a document said he died of a fever). The headstone read that the Almighty was in a foul mood. I can relate to people being angry with God over a death… but not to the idea that it’s all part of a perfect plan, we must rejoice, etc.
And those are not your views either, but we hear this stuff all the time.
Ha, I see I am asking you to solve the problem of suffering.
I appreciate you, Max. 🙂
I did.
I am.
I didn’t deserve the God I got.
I appreciate you, Friend 🙂 We’ll talk to Jesus about that suffering thing when we get to Heaven.
Where the Prey gather, the Predators will swarm.
If their Haitian jewelry business was supposed to help parents care for their children in Haiti, and it was a success – why then, did they still take the children from Haiti?