This is a Herbig-Haro object known as HH 45. It is a rarely seen type of nebula. NASA
“There are far too many silent sufferers. Not because they don’t yearn to reach out, but because they’ve tried and found no one who cares.” ― Richelle E. Goodrich
David Pittman’s abuse by an SBC music minister, Frank Wiley, is alarming. Yet it shows Dave’s incredible and decades-long determination to bring justice to his situation. A year ago, Yonat Shimron wrote for Ministry Watch: Southern Baptist Pastor: Minister Accused of Abusing a Dozen Boys Never Investigated.
Troy Bush, the pastor of Rehoboth Baptist in Tucker, Georgia, said he undertook his own investigation of the minister, a former staffer at Rehoboth Baptist, after learning that the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee working group would not investigate Trinity Baptist Church in Ashburn.
…The minister has never been criminally charged. But Bush said the minister confessed to him and others that he abused several boys ( up to 13 boys.)during his tenure at half a dozen Baptist churches in Georgia.
… “It’s (The SBC) just like the Catholic Church or the Boy Scouts: Kick the can down the road,” said Dave Pittman, 53, who alleges he was sexually abused by the minister from 1982 to 1985 when he was a boy at Rehoboth Baptist Church. “It’s still the truth.”
…Pittman’s story was detailed in the Houston Chronicle’s 2019 “Abuse of Faith” investigation, which found some 700 people had been sexually abused in Southern Baptist churches. Pittman never pressed charges against his abuser because the statute of limitations in Georgia had expired.
…Bush then set about to find the truth about the minister from Trinity. With the help of Pittman, who was once a member of his church, he identified 10 boys, now men, who acknowledged being abused by the minister who has since left Trinity. Bush said he received credible, but as yet unconfirmed, reports of two additional men the minister is alleged to have abused at Georgia Baptist churches and a 13th who was not a church member.
The SBC Executive Committee, under Mike Stone, didn’t do anything. He claimed they couldn’t conduct investigations into churches that were accused of abuse brought up by JD Greear. It is one more story of the abysmal failure of the SBC Executive Committee, which wanted no part of this story. Troy Bush wrote about his finding in a post for SBC Voices: SBC Sexual Abuse: One church’s response when the SBC process failed.
SBC President JD Greear addressed the SBC Executive Committee (EC) and named Trinity Baptist Church, Ashburn, GA, as 1 of 10 churches that needed to give assurance they were properly addressing reports of sexual abuse. Frankie Wiley was Trinity’s music director.
Thomas Hammond, executive director of the Georgia Baptist Mission Board, and Augie Boto, executive vice president and general counsel and the interim executive director and CEO of the EC, expressed support for Trinity without contacting survivors or Rehoboth. Thomas later apologized, and you can read his statement here (https://christianindex.org/hammond-statement-trinity-baptist-church/). Augie has yet to apologize to the survivors of Frankie’s abuse.
…Surely, they considered the claims in the Houston Chronicle article. If that information was not enough, in less than 5 minutes of searching on the Internet, they would have found a 2012 article on David Pittman’s website where he told his story and detailed Frankie’s movement through several Georgia Baptist churches, including Rehoboth and Trinity. You can see that article here (https://togetherweheal.net/2012/10/01/pedophiles-are-like-serial-killers-my-story-by-david-pittman/). David’s phone number and email were on his website. They still are.
JD, Augie, Mike and the Workgroup didn’t contact Rehoboth or me before they completed their inquiry. They didn’t contact David. They didn’t contact Jerry Light, the former pastor of Jodeco Rd. Baptist Church, Stockbridge, GA, a pastor David named in the 2012 post on his website.
…When I called the pastor of Trinity on February 28, he initially defended Frankie and the actions he and Trinity had taken. After I shared Frankie’s confession, Rodney admitted he had been wrong in how he handled this matter. I insisted that he remove Frankie from any ministry role and not merely ask him to resign. On Saturday, March 2, Rodney terminated Frankie and asked him to voluntarily withdraw his membership.
…And I called a Georgia Baptist church last week where Frankie had begun to serve with their worship team.
Here is a quote that will hurt your heart.
It is reprehensible, that I, a victim of this predator, have to be the one that has to figure out a way to contact the churches to protect their children from him when it should be the churches doing the protecting. Victims should not have to do what Jesus called the church to do. —David Pittman
Pittman was at the SBC Convention this week. Here he is with Robert Downen, as well as Tiffany Thigpen, who was abused by Daryl Gilyard, who Paige Patterson shielded.
Here is Dave Pittman’s interview with CBS News. As you will learn, Wiley is now playing keyboards for Trinity Community Church which has cut ties with the SBC. It appears that, for Trinity, the abuser is far more important than his victims. I wonder what Jesus will say to the members of that church one day.
Dave Pittman is an incredibly giving person who reaches out to share his kindness with many others. I have known that kindness personally since he once reached out to me. You should visit his website: Together We Heal.
David founded Together We Heal to provide fellow survivors and their families, guidance through the trauma of childhood sexual abuse.
In 2015 he was asked to become a part of the Child Safeguarding Initiative team with GRACE (Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment) to empower the Christian community through education and training to recognize, prevent, and respond to child abuse.
David represents Together We Heal & GRACE across the country as a public speaker and instructor; teaching churches, schools, and families how to talk with their kids about sexual abuse, how to better identify predatory behavior, and how to properly respond to those harmed.
Thanks to Dave Pittman and his ministry to victims through GRACE and his website. Incredible! Brave! Redemptive!
First! Wasn’t even trying.
Article in National Catholic Reporter entitled “The Eerie Parallels Between the Southern Baptist and Catholic Sexual Abuse Crises”:
https://www.ncronline.org/news/accountability/eerie-parallels-between-southern-baptist-and-catholic-sexual-abuse-crises
I repeat. IMO, “The List” is only the tip of the iceberg. More darkness within SBC will be revealed in the days ahead.
Parents beware! Summer camps, youth retreats, weekend spiritual events with church staff are hunting grounds for “religious” pedophiles. The devil goes to church, too.
Warning: this is an all too real but extremely difficult topic.
Another case of a monster in Christian church leadership violating a child while the church at large silences the child who is being violated, penetrated, and raped.
How sadistic of every person in charge, every adult in this Christian community, every defender of the pedophile including those in the video in the pedophile’s current church.
Very sadistic adults. Church as a house of horrors that destroys childhood for children.
“Unceremoniously,” Dave Pittman says in the video.
Hi, David – I’m so very sorry for it all.
I applaud you for standing up for yourself and others, and speaking the truth at your own expense. You have value, worth standing up for.
I hope there is strength and comfort from those standing up with you. You are worth it.
I’m so sorry it took so long.
i hope for justice for you. you are worth it.
David,
May your boldness give courage to countless others who have been abused and silenced within SBC … to come forth and name names … to protect others … to bring this madness to an end.
elastigirl,
I owe you an email. I am so sorry it’s taken me so long.
Pray for TWW. We are getting ready to hire a professional to help us revamp the whole thing. It may take a while.
Someone needs to bring justice to Tombstone. But the justice will only come when church members bring it forward. Church leaders are incapable and unwilling to make that happen and in the strong culture of compliance across the Christian spectrum, I don’t see that coming to pass.
Secular authorities will crack some of it but many churches are closed communities.
Christians will have to do the heavy lifting though.
Those of us who’ve left the faith are limited in action, except moral support.
True believers will rarely listen to an apostate.
dee,
Praying.
The Christian community that elevates male leadership to the place where the community accepts and supports their male leadership violently raping their children is a Sodom and Gommorah community of torture and terrifying sadism.
The Old Testament documents pagan communities sacrificing their children on altars to pagan gods.
Apparently churches are engaged in such practice.
Blinkers, never mind the pagans, even the patriarchs did some crazy stuff.
Those angels didn’t protest Lot handing over his daughters to the sodomites, Noah cursed a whole nation while naked and drunk, then job’s kids were so valuable that when god allowed them to be killed he was happy enough with replacements. Let’s not forget the Hagar the slave girl surrogate and on and on.
The fundamentalist Christians seize in this barbarism as God’s will, not related to typical bronze/iron age worldviews where most people died young, women and children routinely died off ( guessing the patriarchs didn’t get too attached, except maybe Noah who was like 500 years or something, I’d probably get naked, drunk and cursing too if I watched god kill every single living thing in the world – but I digress)
Seriously why does nobody focus on the talking donkey? If Mr. Ed & Francis (the mule not the Pope) have taught us anything, only good comes from talking animals.
Religion would be more like Sesame Street and less like an Eli Roth movie.
I mean who wouldn’t want their house haunted by a talking mongoose?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gef
They own their followers’:
-money
-wives
-children
-loyalty
-time
-decisions
-brains
-agency.
Ah, yes, Israel wanted a king and they were warned that their king would own and collect on all of the above.
Apparently Evangelicals want their king leaders, too.
Thank God that Jesus cut out the middleman and Jesus’ followers owe none of the above to anyone.
(Jesus told the rich young ruler to donate his riches to the poor, NOT a shekel to Jesus. Jesus never took up a collection for Himself. The disciples NEVER took up a collection for themselves.)
dee,
no worries. you are so great to even think of it.
“God granted them their request, but sent leanness into their lives” (Psalm 106:15)
When you desire your own king and his kingdom in an attempt to do church, you step away from the Kingdom of God and the presence of Jesus/Holy Spirit.
The only members of these Christian communities that count are the males ……… gotta have that scepter between the legs to really matter.
And, these men not only cover for and protect one another; they often elevate one another. The SBC as well as other “Christian” organizations have made that blatantly obvious.
Women and children don’t count for much. Women and children always have the potential to become collateral
damage.
My hat goes off to all of the victims who have come forward publicly and had the courage to tell the truth. In my eyes, they are no longer victims, but victors.
I’ve read David Pittman’s words on other websites. He stood out to me because ……. he’s a man, or he’s a pastor, or men have a much larger voice/are allowed to speak more and are listened to more in the SBC ??? I don’t know.
I do know that, given the current hierarchical structure (according to gender) within the SBC, David has the power, position, and voice to accomplish more and be heard more than any woman can……… and he’s doing it.
I don’t know if the SBC ship can ever be righted. I’m afraid that too many people just don’t care. I know that there are a lot people (men) who are not willing to make the changes necessary to right it.
I hope that Pittman, Thigpen, Woodson, Brown, Tucker, (and let’s not forget Dee, and other bloggers, writers, and reporters who expose the stories!) etc, never stop fighting to change things.
SBC can’t afford an “It didn’t happen here” attitude across its 47,000+ churches … or it will continue to happen. Until SBC’s 13 million church members look differently at church leaders and volunteers … until they stop giving them carte blanche trust … until they start keeping a closer eye on women and children in their camp … wolves dressed in shepherd’s clothing will devour the sheep.
Here’s the brutal reality:
So long as the potlucks and social events calendars remain unchanged, I think you’re right, they just don’t give a rat’s ass.
Nancy2(aka Kevlar),
“The only members of these Christian communities that count are the males ……… gotta have that scepter between the legs to really matter.
And, these men not only cover for and protect one another; they often elevate one another. The SBC as well as other “Christian” organizations have made that blatantly obvious.”
++++++++++++++++
this is, like, as far back as you can go into base caveman behavior.
it’s like watching a snippet from 2001:A Space Odyssey
i marvel at how my religion fosters reaching backwards in maturity, character development, enlightenment.
instead of reaching forwards. (which is apparently a terrifying prospect)
(but then religion and faith systems are what people make of them)
.
.
reminds me of my college-student son.
I routinely say to him, “Reach forward, to age 30. Instead of reaching backwards to age 16.”
I think it’s been a helpful maxim in his decision-making in living his life.
Christa is very photogenic, even from behind. Glad she’s still fighting the good fight.
elastigirl,
“i marvel at how my religion fosters reaching backwards in maturity, character development, enlightenment.
instead of reaching forwards…
…“Reach forward, to age 30. Instead of reaching backwards to age 16.”
++++++++++++
should have said “instead of being pulled backwards”.
guess there’s a difference between passively being pulled backwards, and actively resisting being pulled forwards.
i think generally-speaking, humanity is being pulled forwards
(survival instinct, drive for something better, open-mindedness & innovation from the need and desire to solve problems)
i think humanity learns to grow their character in sync with technology and social growth.
it takes a concerted effort to resist all that, which amounts to actively reaching backwards to underdeveloped character and immature, more self-centered behavior.
(but i think 19, 20 year-olds get a measure of grace in the tug of war of those years)
That’s why there’s an obsession with old testament law.
But even Jesus said he didn’t come to change a jot or tittle of that.
The law was still in force.
Jack,
Reformed religion is unitarianism. Another gospel instead of another comforter.
The reformed do what they accuse the “Armenians” of doing (believing God doesn’t do anything for anybody), but some segregation had to be introduced which can therefore only be done on a completely arbitrary basis.
There is no contrast between being lost and being “found”. They have no Holy Spirit heart language providential perseverance, which is why they don’t preach about the hedgerow times they are precipitating upon the world.
Michael in UK,
(Some of the actual Unitarians probably have honest ideals.)
Interesting. Selective text use for nefarious purpose.
The Bible, from Creation to the Heavenly City, is a trajectory building one revelation upon the previous, under the umbrella of one unified message of God’s love for mankind.
Jesus quoted the OT prophets before His time to reveal prophesies fulfilled with His birth, work, and life.
Jesus also said that He had to leave so God’s Holy Spirit could come after Him and live among us.
There’s order to this.
At the time of Jesus’ death the curtain to the Holiest of Holies was split down the middle to indicate the end of the Levitical Era.
In case this hasn’t been noticed or mentioned, an adult forcing his junk into a child or a minor is:
-causing excruciatingly grotesque physical pain and harm.
-ripping up the emotional wellbeing of a young person as their innocent trust is betrayed by a con and a thief.
-planting a minefield in the child’s psyche as the child disassociates their mind and body to survive the trauma that will haunt their brain forever.
The assault is never sex but always sadism.
Everyone who supports or ignores this is equally sadistic.
We saw that in 2016 and 2020-present.
Many years ago, one documentary cable channel show (when there were documentary cable channels) covered that Bible story. And claimed in the original language, the talking donkey’s complaint actually contained a sexual innuendo. And that this was probably the storyteller’s way of saying “You know the kind of man Balaam Ben Beor was? He’d screw his own donkey if you waved enough money under his nose!”
The obsessives about the children’s privates, setting the example to the world then reifying to give their poison sacred force without prayer.
I don’t know why this was said by you; it is this in evil form.
As the child is the father of the man, the resurgents have deprived humans of the right to innocent living.
The war on boys and the war on women have always been the same war.
Thank you for not normalising 1969. The secular establishment are doing the filthy work of the resurgents.
Adults could reject resurgent religion. Boys aren’t being offered any alternative than a sex change “treatment”.
dee,
Our Fathers & Glory Be’s are being said.
Jesus was tempted by satan with bread and answered, “Man shall not live by bread alone.”
Esau sold his birthright for a bowl of stew.
The original sin was eating forbidden fruit.
Going along with the eating and drinking crowd can be our #1 priority. Or not. Adulting means making decisions beyond the social party, and with Eternity in mind, so then doing what’s right.
It seems the churchfolk that whinge the most at secular culture in their culture wars are the ones who tolerate, support, and even engage in the violent violation of children in their churches.
What could be a more vile culture than violating children in church community?
I don’t get it. None of this makes sense.
The focus of the “reformed” solely on superficial body language without intuiting the good in anybody leads to their hate language and microagressions against the neuro untypical, setting a bad example to the worldly establishment.
Thus bad religion is the mainspring of the sick mania of the blutocrats to tell the children to self harm. Getting on with life has been turned into something totally ad hominem, “your own personal jesus”.
1. Is somebody going to have some compassion on a 17 year old?
It didn’t matter why Ravi was in hospital.
What was “important” was to induce him to ignore the prayer of Daniel and, as our leader, to treat Daniel as a cheap numeric gotcha for the apologetism “industry”.
2. Reformed religion: you are a fallen woman, man, girl, boy.
Believing public: I am a fallen woman, man, girl, boy.
Is this why they don’t do missions any more: they have converted the globe already.
If you took away potluck dinners, coffee/donuts in the foyer, and social events from SBC life, the denomination’s 13 million members would quickly dwindle! I mean, what’s the purpose going to church at that point?!!
The American church has drifted so far from the Main Thing, little of what is done makes any sense at all. Jesus has no authority or influence in most churches.
“Most”?
I haven’t visited enough churches to say. Watchblogs cover necessary and frightening situations, not the ordinary and healthy.
Headless Unicorn Guy,
This highlights an important point. The biblical writers were writing in their vernacular to an audience who was of the same culture and understood what they were talking about.
They didn’t write in English or any current language and they wouldn’t understand the world the way do.
Thank goodness. Your information prevented me from heading down a heretical path.
My next step would be to canonize Dr Dolittle.
Now I’m hungry…
It just clicked with me ……….
Funny (NOT FUNNY) how our SBC leaders condemn the LGBTQ community, condemn churches who accept gays into their congregations, push for “conversion therapy” for youth who question their sexual identity………
Yet, when a “Christian brother” assaults a boy, they cover things up; lie for the perpetrator; blame, threaten, and gaslight the victim; and in some instances even elevate and/or promote the offender.
Sounds to me like heretics promoting false religion …… the epitome of wolves in sheeps clothing, beyond any shadow of doubt.
It’s a strong culture of compliance. These closed communities become so insular that the abnormal becomes normal.
All the eggs are in one basket. Friends, social activities often family.
That’s why cults are insistent that marriage happens within the cult.
Not just “normal” but “GAWD HATH SAID!!!!!”
The threat of The Great White Throne and Eternal Hell can be quite a motivator.
What is the significance of the year 1969?
Here in the States, it was 1968 when everything seemed to go south, to the point that one now-defunct blog called it “1968 – the year Sauron got The Ring”.
I think they want to pretend it (molestation of kids) doesn’t happen in their respective ‘church’ cultures. And when it does, they’ll bend over backwards to try and do damage control.
Rather than instituting rigorous vetting procedures before adults (mostly men) can get anywhere near kids and teens, they’ll play fast and loose with the ‘fates’ so to speak.
And you (generic you) can get cast into the lake of fire even for jay-walking so to speak.
Here to say the rigorous vetting procedures exist and reduce risk. It is also possible to find out which churches have good systems in place. Ask, and keep moving if you don’t get a good answer.
“It is reprehensible, that I, a victim of this predator, have to be the one that has to figure out a way to contact the churches to protect their children from him when it should be the churches doing the protecting. Victims should not have to do what Jesus called the church to do. —David Pittman”
this quote alone supports the great need for Dee’s blog as a way for victims to come forward and to give witness to their suffering at the hands of predators
any who do this work of providing support for victims of abuse are a blessing to the whole Church
Polite society.
From the APA, American Psychiatric Association:
https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/rape-power-anger-and-sexuality
Journalists like with the Guardian will argue these points, as in pop psych.
Experts such as FBI profilers (i.e. Roy Hazelwood) agree with the APA.
IMHO, I’m sticking with these research experts.
In any case, the adult sticking his junk into a child is an act of sadism, most certainly to the child. Painful, damaging, gross, shocking, traumatic, disorienting and evil.
That’s about all I have to add. The experts, such as mentioned above, present their work. (Yes, we know from Court cases, there are “experts” for every viewpoint. I’m going with the aforementioned cohort.)
Imagine for some, even this discourse is titillating or engaging. Sick. For victims and survivors it may be triggering but never ever pleasant.
Enough already.
Most of the ones I’ve visited in my area in recent years. I hope it’s different where you live. Jesus plays second-fiddle to unholy pulpits and unspiritual pews in my neck of the woods.
I learned growing up that Politeness is the Mark of a Sociopath.
To this day, I will NEVER EVER say “Please” or “Thank You”.
More like Not Being Devout Enough and/or one instant of mistattention.
And there’s ALWAYS someone More Devout Than Thou who will Tsk Tsk you.
So you have No Life outside the Cult.
What got me out of that Not-a-Cult in 1976 was attending my first SF convention (NASFIC 1975), linking up with other geeks like me, and discovering Dungeons & Dragons. I had something on the Outside other than my family.
🙁 That’s what I feared, based on your words from time to time.
The Bible doesn’t always say nice things about cities, but a big population can support more churches, so people have more choices.
Because that’s how you keep Shlomo on the sheep dip. Paint the Big Bad Cities as dens of (sexual) SIN SIN SIN and the country as Righteousness and Virtue. Otherwise he’d run away to the Big City. “How you gonna keep ’em down on the farm after they’ve seen Paree?”
Literally yesterday I came across Disney Princess theology where you’re always the good guy. People are so set in being the good guy they’re not equipped even to see that what is going on is sick and that they are enabling it.
No matter how much they have to twist the narrative to make themselves the princess!
John,
“God’s perfect plan” is getting quite a workout these days, too.
Judaism was never obsessed with the kind of perfectionism that evangelical christianity is steeped in.
In modern Judaism, good enough is good enough, why make the unobtainable even more unachievable?
For years now, I’ve maintained that modern Judaism has a much better handle on reality than does ixtian evangelicalism.
And I know from experience that Perfectionism can Kill.
So have I.
Judaism has an earthiness and emphasis on the Here-and-Now that is a badly-needed counterpoint to balance Christian obsession with the Hereafter.
Didn’t Screwtape write Wormwood to keep his “patient” constantly living in the Future instead of the Present? Well, Rapture/Heaven Obsession is the Christianese way of piously Living Entirely in the Future.
This doesn’t have to do with Second Amendment Sunday with the Moonies?
(AKA AR-15s and Disney Princess Crowns.)
Even Disney scriptwriters rag on the Disney Princess shticks.
In Zootopia, their “Princess” is a country girl who became a cop in the big city.
In Moana, Maui rags on Moana for being a Princess – “You’re father’s a Chief? Cute animal sidekick? PRINCESS.”
Even Disney treats the “Disney Princess” shtick as a joke these days!
Ava Aaronson,
Yes, that’s why it is misused sex and sadism.
Headless Unicorn Guy,
This was when Her Majesty government officially normalised sex outside marriage, in authoritative civics lessons for children (who knew all they needed to know in private), while churches weren’t praying.
Creeps who pretend to be “one of the laddies” who were twice our age by copying our playground talk.
Getting off on the thought.
This is how boys were weaponised against women.
The war on boys is the same war as the war against women.
God created us non-subtractively according to non-fake complementarity. Christianity inverts meanings totally.
I knew the teachers were in the wrong and I was no heckler. Other boys took a risky oblique approach.
It’s only now I have realised the churches weren’t praying, and still aren’t.
It’s only now I’ve realised big people were taking children for a “ride” from at least 10 years prior to then (and in the Roman headquarters, longer).
I’m de-normalising all that. I hope you will all be with me on that.
The child is the father of the man. When the churches start adopting orphans, they’ll find themselves adopting widows too.
In time for hedgerow times precipitated on the world’s children by reformed / roman religion.
They will start believing in providential perseverance. In gift trading from the heart. In another comforter and not another gospel. Almost all jesus’ teachings and the meat in the Old Testament are on this very subject.
When I stammer Our Fathers and Glory Be’s, it is in the intention of children of all ages.
When the baby got stolen in Solomon’s time, the thief had plan B which was to harm its body. This has got a moral for moral doctrines.
Are you referring to the kidnapper’s reaction to Solomon’s threat? Or do you perceive that the kidnapper had some other backup plan?
Kidnapping itself is harmful enough.
Friend,
Plan B was what got wheeled out when she was caught.
The carve up of children began in my time.
Michael in UK,
Ava, I have extensive insight into the APA which doesn’t allow differential diagnoses or overlapping categories. The UK is a very centralised country where HM government imposed the “prospect” of sex outside marriage (at whose expense?). In place of seeking one form of bad sex some people may have “chosen” a different form of bad sex. Sex essentially is when one person seeks it and the other goes “oh OK”, whatever that meant, or “lets” themselves get gagged, or whatever. Gender theology which lends sacred force without Holy Spirit prayer, to worldly corporations’ actions, has aimed a spotlight on children’s privates, their gestures and their tastes (macro microagressions). That is how these issues are directly connected.