The Aurora Borealis over Canada as seen from the ISS. NASA
“Women should not be forced to accept sexual harassment as the price of admission to a life and career in the political world. They should not have to endure unwanted touching, innuendo, and propositioning from men in positions of power.” J. B. Pritzker
12/14/22 I have linked to two statements by the Stackhouses that they believe will clarify their positions. I leave that up to you.
Is Dr. Stackhouse’s Wife His Former Student?
Second Statement—from Me & from My Wife, Sarah-Jane
I11/30/23 I updated the title today to more clearly reflect the situation.
Who is John Stackhouse Jr.?
Many folks in the broader evangelical community will be upset by this revelation. It appears to be a longstanding problem and was first investigated at Regent College in 2014. Here is the “About” section on his website. He is a bit unusual in his presentation. Please read the sections under these headings.
Scholar, Author, Speaker, Consultant, Problem Solver, and Crime Fighter
Here is Wikipedia’s version.
John Gordon Stackhouse Jr. (born 1960) is a Canadian scholar of religion. As a journalist he has been recognized with over a dozen awards by the Canadian Church Press, and his scholarship has been supported by research grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Association of Theological Schools, the Canadian Embassy to the United States, and several other sponsors.
…John Jr. received his higher education in Canada and the United States: after a year at Mount Carmel Bible School in Edmonton, he received a BA (First Class Honours, Queen’s University, Kingston) in history, an MA (with Highest Honors, Wheaton College) in church history and theology (with a thesis supervised by Mark A. Noll), and a PhD (University of Chicago) in the history and theology of Christianity (with a dissertation supervised by Martin E. Marty).
I particularly liked this. It reminds me of that famous statement by Rodney King, “Can we all get along?”
He takes almost equal time to describe this style, revising David Bebbington’s famous definitional quadrilateral to suggest that evangelicalism can be identified by the following sextet of adjectives: Trinitarian, Biblicist, conversionist, missional, pragmatic, and populist. In doing so, Stackhouse attempts to show how Nigerian indigenous Christians, Korean Presbyterians, Brazilian Pentecostals, and Canadian Mennonites can plausibly all be called by the same term—in distinction from conservative and liberal alternative styles.
Stackhouse is accused of inappropriate behavior at Crandall University and allegedly was investigated while at Regent.
CBC (Canada) reports: Christian university severs ties with prof after investigation into allegations of inappropriate behaviour. The following statement is essential.
Stackhouse came to Crandall in 2015 after a 17-year tenure at Regent College in Vancouver. He taught numerous classes at Crandall including two mandatory courses for students, one called the Christian Way and another on ethics.
I bet some of you thought, “Why did he leave Regent after 17 years?” Good question. It appears he was investigated at Regent College for similar behavior. For example, when asked, before his appointment to Crandall, if there had ever been any complaints against him at his previous institution, he replied:
Screengrab from video
There was an investigation in 2014 focusing on his behavior. There was reportedly a settlement reached at Regent. Regent said it couldn’t discuss the issue, and it appears there might have been an NDA. It appears that Regent was not advised to report his behavior to Crandall. This behavior was seen in many churches as well as Christian institutions. For example, SEBTS and The Summit Church will not comment on Bruce Ashford.
The following video covers both the Crandall University firing and information on Regent College.
Crandall University summarizes actions ending with the termination of John Stackhouse.
Here is a link to Crandall’s summary.
Crandall University, an independent liberal arts university, with an enrolment of more than 1,400 students, has terminated the employment of Dr. John G. Stackhouse Jr., a professor and member of Crandall’s faculty. Dr. Stackhouse received notice of termination today after a comprehensive, six-month, investigation.
…(ed. Leadership at Crandall) expressed the institution’s deepest regret to all of its students, and particularly to any student or students who were made to feel threatened, diminished, or victimized by the words or actions of a faculty member. “Paramount at Crandall University is the safety and security of its students. We cannot and will not tolerate behaviour from its administration, faculty, or staff that in any way violates the University’s mission and identity,” they said.
…The work of the investigation involved confidential material relating to students, faculty, and staff, most of whom were not the subject of the investigation. It also involved details pertaining to confidential personnel matters. “A vitally important guideline for the investigation was to protect the identity and security of anyone who may have been the subject of, or involved with, inappropriate conversations or behaviour, or may otherwise have been reluctant to share information,” said Ms. Cummings.
The following is a mea culpa over the university’s harassment policies or the lack thereof.
The investigation and the subsequent employment action conclude this incident, but clearly all of us at Crandall must work very hard to ensure that we maintain this very special University community at the highest standards. As the report to the Board recommends, our next step will be to focus on strengthening our harassment policies with input from our students and other members of our University community.”
The findings of the investigation into this matter by Crandall University
The following is the report of the inquiry:
Summary of Findings from Pink Larkin Report on Allegations of Improper Conduct at Crandall University, presented to the Crandall University Board of Governors on November 15th, 2023. The following are included in the report. I strongly suggest reading the entire document.
…(A student) contacted the investigator by email in June of 2023. She had questions for him “with the intent of potentially sharing some information.” She verbally shared the contents of some emails sent to her by (the faculty member) over a period of approximately seven months, which sounded, to the investigator, quite inappropriate. After a review of the “100 pages or so” of emails, permission was obtained from (the student) to share the emails with (the faculty member) and with Crandall, and to use them as needed in this investigation.
The investigator noted that (the student) did not engage in, or otherwise encourage, what he referred to as “the inappropriate banter” during these seven months.
According to the report, (the faculty member) does not dispute having written these emails. His response, according to the report, was:
This episode of email banter over of a two-year relationship was inappropriate, unhealthy, unbecoming of a professor and he would not defend it. It cannot be defended; It was inappropriate; It was something of an aberration from a long career; These were extreme circumstances that will not reoccur;… (and additional comments of explanation)
The investigator concluded that while it is true that (the faculty member) stopped sending such email messages on his own and he did not behave in person with (the student) in a manner akin to his written messages, the investigator found that this is “a classic case” of grooming – to use an expression (the faculty member) alluded to himself in one email to (the student). The investigator said that it is entirely possible that (the faculty member) corrected his behavior because it proved to be ineffective; he moved on
…Many years ago, two other incidents came to Crandall’s attention.
One involved inappropriate behavior involving a student by a professor off campus and was not reported quickly. When it was finally reported, it was dealt with through the policy outlined in the University’s Harassment Policy – the student received counseling and ultimately the professor’s contract was not renewed.
…The investigator states: “I believe he is deserving of severe disciplinary action. Crandall needs to move quickly on this, and its actions need to be as transparent as the law on fairness and confidentially allow.
Here is an anonymous Instagram account discussing student-reported incidents.
According to this report, Stackhouse apparently dated a student and then married her. When did he get a divorce from his first wife?
This may be an important observation. I noted that he rarely mentioned his family in his bios, etc. It now appears that he was divorced since he was able to remarry.
Dating a Student
It has been alleged that (the faculty member) dated a student. (The faculty member) claims to have recently married a person who was once his student at Crandall. According to both (the faculty member) and the interviewee (the former student), their romantic relationship began in the Summer or late Summer of 2022. (The interviewee) was also (the faculty member’s) student in courses taken in the Fall of 2020, in the Winter of 2021, and in the Winter of 2022. (The interviewee’s) last course with (the faculty member) ended in April 2022. By that time, a friendship had blossomed between them, and he had retained her to do some work for him (activities unrelated to Crandall).
The investigator reviewed numerous emails exchanged between (the faculty member) and (the interviewee), which were provided by (the faculty member) at the investigator’s request. The investigator stated that he cannot be certain that (the faculty member) has not omitted some communications which might have provided some indication that there romance had begun before they both said it did. The emails reviewed do not support the contention that they were “dating” or had begun a romantic relationship when she was his student.
Based on the information outlined above, the investigator would not conclude that this situation, from a legal perspective, demonstrates misconduct on the part of (the faculty member).
The following was a report on Crandall’s University harassment policies
I have included just a few of the suggestions. Please read the entire report. Recommendations for Review and Updating of Crandall University’s Harassment Policy and Procedures
…The Policy should be clear to the effect that harassment (sexual or otherwise) and abuse of authority are not tolerated. This message should be conveyed and reiterated by way of regular employee (and student) training and visual reminders.
…Crandall now has its own in-house counsellors. The University should ensure they have the necessary competence and training to assist those who have been traumatized by abusive conduct;
Crandall should ensure that advice is given, and investigations are conducted, by persons who are culturally competent and competent in a trauma-informed approach;
Anonymous complaints should be permitted, and, where appropriate, investigated;….The recommendations suggest that Crandall needs to ensure there is a rigorous process in place where all student evaluations that flag inappropriate behaviours, or even border-line inappropriate behaviours, are properly documented, and where appropriate, followed up upon.
Final thoughts
- The hundred+ emails received by one student, who reportedly did not want them, appear to be a case of possible grooming. “One student provided the investigator with “100 pages or so” of emails sent to her by the professor over seven months.”
- Did a signed NDA prevent Regent from telling Crandall about his behavior?
- Did Stackhouse lie when asked by Crandall if he had any history of being accused of sexual harassment?
- Although the charges are vague, there seem to be quite a few of them.
- When one is fired or asked to leave by two universities/colleges, something is wrong.
- Stackhouse was well-liked by many. I was among that many.
- I am not familiar with the judicial system in Canada. Could civil suits be brought against Stackhouse or the university?
- I noted that he rarely mentioned his wife and sons in his bios. I do not have a date for his divorce from his first wife. That was sure kept quiet.
- He apparently divorced, then dated, and married a student in 2022. Yikes! Wife #2 should be concerned.
- Something is going on here. If the reports are to be believed, his behavior hasn’t changed in years. That means he will likely continue to follow his usual patterns of conduct. In other words, if he is a groomer, he will groom.
“There was no open complaint at the time of my leaving” – come on! That is not a red flag that something went on? Or might be coming to light soon? And yet Crandall still hired him. Where is the good leadership in this world?
I know of a pastor who found out one of his associate pastors was engaged in inappropriate sexual behavior; before they could prove his sin, he left to take a pastorate at another church. The senior pastor went and spoke to the leadership of the church who had just hired him. The young pastor sued the senior pastor for $250,000 dollars [defamation] and WON.
_______
So the senior pastor who did the right thing owed the young pastor $250,000. That might give one pause before blowing the whistle on a cheating pastor – or anybody else.
No open complaint ……..
I wonder what percent of university students who are sexually harassed by professors actually come forward to make formal complaints???
This stuff is black comedy, it really is.
Thanks for this Dee.
To answer your question, “Could civil suits be brought against Stackkhouse ar the university?”
Short answer, yes,through The Human Rights Tribunal.
Did you get a cease and desist from the Dr. Stackhouse media outfit? I see Sarah at The Roys Report did. Tacky. This is being covered widely in Canada by national and provincial outlets. Haven’t had an opportunity to look at smaller or social media yet, but Dr. Stackhouse is well known inside and outside religious circles. Cat is out of the bag so to speak.
I see Sarah also heard from a lawyer representing Stackhouse. What I didn’t see was anything from him on Canadian fair use, which is fairly robust.
I think John Stackhouse kept his family out of the bright public spotlight he was in, and I can’t fault him for that. I think that was a wise decision.
i’m disappointed and saddened, and not happy to see threats to anyone covering this.
Kudos to students for going public on CBC, kudos to thr former board chair for being succinct. Regents statement is a disgrace, bound by law or not. I hope this is a wakeup call to Canadian Christian institutions. I suspect not.
Denis Gregoris is the attorney representing Dr. Stackhouse, out of Toronto. Long way from New Brunswick and Crandall U…and he appears to be a specialist in defamation law.
This is already ugly and I think its going to get a lot uglier.
You would think that a man, especially a married Christian man, with more authority as a Professor over his students, would be more careful with his thoughts, words, and deeds in relation to women students in his teaching environment. I think this particular University did the right thing, unlike Regent College.
Bene D,
I think this Professor would be wise not to destroy his reputation any further by engaging in a lawsuit, which would expose his true nature even further and destroy any chance of being hired as a Professor ever again.
JJallday,
To be fair, unless any University has knowledge of inappropriate behaviour by one of their Professors hired or to be hired, they cannot act by firing the Professor. Was the Professor discussed here evasive with his answers? Answer: Probably so.
I think the solution would be to have every Professor and staff at the University sign a document which states that they are not involved in any activity that could damage the reputation of the University and be disciplined if they do, including termination.
It was ugly long before it got ugly.
Professors diddling with their students is ugly. Period. On all sorts of levels.
She’s there to get a degree and get somewhere in life. He’s there to prey on a woman with a mission, dangling her future as his member dangles in his pants.
She’s there (pursuing higher ed.) to get ahead. He’s there, as higher ed. itself, as an animal on the prowl, the lowest form of a human being, to bring her down.
This is truly ugly. Long before it got ugly.
Oh yeah, the predatory wolf professor can find representation with a lawyer. There are plenty of predatory wolf lawyers equally on the prowl.
Ugly, right from the jump with these guys.
(To be fair, there are women who entrap men, also as predatory wolves. Yet Dateline evidences that in our male privilege society, predatory men far outnumber predatory women. But there are predators among both genders.)
Back to “Let Us Prey” on Max: the IFB Churches, run by men, who preyed on girls. Youth pastors and their wives hire babysitters from the youth groups. Those girls were prey for the youth pastor. In the church van. On the church youth room couch. In the youth pastor’s home. In his church office. Like the prophet Eli’s sons in 1 Samuel. And like the prophet Eli, the Senior pastors provide cover. If the girl told, she was shunned in her church community. For life.
How to end up trafficked as a sex toy as a minor? Hang around a IFB church youth pastor while in your teens, girls. It’s systemic. Nationwide, from coast to coast. Perhaps international? Is the IFB Church global?
HUG–off topic but sent you a reply on the previous Weigh Down post.
Still off topic: ya’ll keep us in prayer today if you would. We are mid 70’s and in great health, so we are off to the forest to get downed trees for firewood. Keeps us healthy but there is always a risk at this age. Hubs does the heavy lifting, and the chainsawing. I drive the truck to pull the logs out of the forest up to the road. I am excited to do so now that the cataracts are gone and I am no longer near sighted. Should be easier to see the trees in my way now, but I don’t want to be over confident either.
senecagriggs,
It is for this reason that many have allowed sex abuse to continue unchecked.
Bene D,
Thank you for keeping me updated on this matter. In cases like this, I tend to stick to what is being reported in the media. I’m sure they know that they have to make a case for defamation in federal courts in the US since Julie/Sarah are online, which means they are not in a particular location.
If this post disappears, you will know that it is getting heated.
So far, I’ve heard nothing. Sarah posted several hours before me as I discovered when I checked after posting.
thank you for a well-balanced approach. Stackhouse was a professor of mine at Regent College – probably my favorite instructor. He was witty, devastatingly hard (his nickname was the angel of death), had a dry sense of humor, regularly joked with students – and was generally an extremely fun person inside and outside the classroom.
When I first read the allegations (including the report) I hoped that it was all going to be a mistake – a series of misunderstandings. Perhaps (as the report alluded) an older man’s humor and approach not being appreciated by a younger (dare we say woke?) generation. It seemed plausible.
Then it all collapsed when I read about his divorce (really bad) and subsequent remarriage (devastatingly bad) to a former student. The man is 62 – that means he likely married someone between 22-24. So he was 61 at the time and she was perhaps 23 at best. That’s a 38 year difference.
What.the.heck?? This is really the most alarming thing to me. The allegations (including on the Crandall “dobettercrandall” instagram are nebulous and really not that credible to me. But the divorce and remarriage?
Yikes. I’m disappointed and frankly slightly distressed.
As we’ve seen countless times in TWW reports, Christian universities are not immune from wolves in professor’s clothing.
Funny how those two go together.
Is he playing the “PERSECUTION!!!!!” or “TOUCH NOT MINE ANOINTED!!!” card, or just the usual Holy DARVO?
Jeff: I did some digging – and no way I’m going to dox anyone, ever.
I think the new Mrs. Stackhouse was a mature student, late 30’s or so.
That narrows the shock factor, she has life experience etc., but yeah. I have a couple of friends in a May-September romance that proved everyone wrong. It’s a tough road, cultural and social stigma and shunning, especially when divorce is involved.
Or, I’m wrong. Either way, lives upended, broken expectations to patch up. As you say, distressing.
As we know, this can simply mean there is an NDA and the said complaint is settled.
Red fkags all over the place . . .
He and the hiring University acted the fool here.
Jeff,
Jeff, do you know for sure that Dr. Stackhouse’s first marriage ended in divorce? (That is, is it possible his first wife died?) And if the marriage did end in divorce, is it possible she deserted him? (I’m asking in an attempt to be fair, because my first thought, upon reading about the situation, was that he had ended the marriage, possibly to date his new wife.)
There was a personal connection in the mid-’90s, and I’m quite shocked by the whole thing. (Obviously JGS and I have out of touch for a long time.)
I can verify JGS’s quick wit and keen intelligence.
There has to be more personal accountability as well as corporate accountability. Lack of personal discipline as well as corporate discipline leads to all kinds of problems. We need to speak up when abuse happens and deal with the abuser in a biblical manner. This involves confrontation with the abuser, a call to repentance, a need for an apology, and restoration if this is possible.
Bridget,
Well, most Universities have a Code of Conduct, and as such all University staff and students are required to adhere to the University Code of Conduct. If anyone breaks the Code of Conduct it requires immediate action. The University in question did the right things: 1. It investigated the claims made against the Professor through an independent impartial investigator. 2. It responded to the conclusions of the investigator within a week. 3. It terminated the employment of the Professor.
The University probably also met with the Professor before terminating his employment, which would have been step 3, before terminating.
Bene D,
How does Mrs. Stackhouse feel when her husband is flirting with other students in his classroom?
Bene D,
Jeff,
Of course I am very concerned about this situation, but I am nonetheless a bit alarmed at some of the idle speculation here. First, even without an NDA, it’s very unlikely Regent College could have dropped a dime on Stackhouse when he moved to Crandall. My own employer doesn’t even confirm whether someone is an employee there. Privacy laws are real and employers cannot communicate concerns to potential employers. If Regent had got on the horn to Crandall, they would have exposed themselves to legal consequences that could have spelled the end of Regent. I don’t blame Regent at all for remaining silent about this.
Second: I have no idea what his divorce and remarriage has to do with anything. If he dated or married a student, yeah, that’s bad. But there’s no evidence of that. The alleged age difference is just chin-rubbing. People get divorced and remarried all the time.
I totally agree that students (everyone) need to be protected from harassment and behaviours that make people feel uncomfortable. But that’s the real issue. Let’s focus on that and skip the stuff that we don’t know or doesn’t matter.
Graduate and former employee of public schools, kindergarten all the way through post-baccalaureate, here. Public schools are by no means perfect, either. But, parents of high schoolers and college-age kids, rest assured, public schools (at least in the last 20-ish years) tend to take sexual harassment seriously.
As a resident advisor, I accompanied a victim of sexual harassment to the police station to make a report. As a student employee in the teacher credentialing program, I saw someone’s credential request denied because they didn’t pass the background check. As a secretary in a dean’s office, I saw the dean and faculty reviewers take seriously complaints made in anonymous student classroom reviews of complains made about inappropriate classroom comments (for two different professors). As an employee, I made my own complaint about another staff person and was taken seriously.
This is an area where private Christian entities could stand to learn a lesson from their public school counterparts.
Oh you mean like when a (dirty) old man in a position of authority says something gross (if you’re not sure what “gross” would constitute, ask yourself if Jesus would say it), and when the younger, less powerful person pushes back, everyone rallies to the predator’s defense, “He was just kidding!!!” And then they can dismiss the whistleblower by calling her “woke.”
What’s wrong with this younger generation that they don’t “appreciate” his “sense of humor”? Why can’t they just go along with getting groomed by Uncle Pervy? (eye roll)
the new Mrs. Stackhouse
Bene D,
Chances are, Mr. Stackhouse fooled around on the first Mrs. Stackhouse with the new Mrs. Stackhouse. Regardless of her age or maturity level, the new Mrs. Stackhouse has no reason to think Mr. Stackhouse not going to fool around on her (or that he has been fooling around).
Stackhouse huh?
Sounds like a brand of pancake mix.
dee,
I think that is correct.
Sheriff: Pentagon Official Who Oversaw Military Schools Arrested in Georgia Human Trafficking Operation [ I’m pretty sure he’s not IFB ]
____________
What has frequently irritated me about Wartburg commenters is there seeming oblivion to secular people and organization committing gross evils. Don’t tell me that the public school system would “never allow this to happen.” Because that’s bull-shoveling. All you got to do is read and it’s all there. “26 year old social studies teacher seduces 14 year old boy.”
Dr. Stackhouse Jr. has released a statement:
https://www.johnstackhouse.com/post/initial-public-statement
https://nypost.com/2022/08/23/women-are-more-likely-to-cheat-than-men-heres-why/
#
I read this recently and was very surprised. Wives more likely to engage in adultery than husbands? Who knew.
Muff Potter,
We’ll, you’ve reminded me of a bit of silliness. There was an iconic restaurant here, The Original Pancake House. The sign featured a simple drawing of a chef flipping pancakes.
My wife and I knew Dr. S. back in the mid-’90s, and it behooved me to draw a cartoon, a reproduction of the restaurant’s logo, but with the head of Dr. S. replacing that of the generic chef.
Of course the establishment became The Original Stackhouse.
No, I did not show him – I found him quite intimidating.
Bene D,
A hilariously sad bunch of gobbledygook.
A professor at Cedarville did the exact same thing with a friend of mine when I was there.
Fire them immediately. They sit in chapel, and teach daily, pretending….it’s all fake.
Bene D,
I was hoping that was the case…..it does somewhat help frame it all a bit better. But at the same time…..for a man who has made a living discoursing on Christian ethics, morality, theology, etc – this is still disappointing. We don’t know everything behind the divorce – perhaps his former wife had an affair and left him. We simply don’t know. But that’s part of the problem – so much left to conjecture and it’s not enough to simply say it’s none of anyone’s business when again – you’ve made your living on Christian ethics.
Ariel,
I would suggest that you’re perhaps reading more into this than what is warranted. I sat through hundreds of hours of lectures with him. I understand his humor and wit and frankly – what I was suggesting is that for a generation not raised on real satire and absurdity to make a point – that generation could easily mistake his humor. I mean, in an age where even John Cleese can be cancelled by the current generation anything can be mistaken. Stackhouse was a straightshooter but lampooned himself as much if not more than he ever critiqued others. He was constantly self-deprecating.
Please understand – I’m not saying that is what happened here. I’m hoping that is what happened. And I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case. We simply don’t know – i’ve read through all of the instagram posts by “dobettercrandall” and there’s just not enough there to really understand what happened.
Again – from a guy who has hundreds and hundreds of hours of lecture recordings – I never once heard anything remotely close to what is being alleged.
“These people draw near to Me with their mouth, and honor Me with their lips,
but their heart is far from Me.” (Matthew 15:8)
Note the last paragraph where he has “instructed his legal counsel” to go after the whistleblower.
Make an Example of one and you silence a hundred.
The good ole boys in the golden good ole days were not so good.
Someone, or some folks, at some point were desensitized.
Lawsuits, penalties, bad publicly and jailtime tend to re-establish sensitivity and integrity.
When the female students nickname their college course their “Obscenity Class”, there’s a reason. It happens.
I recall reading something written by Stackhouse, a few years ago, saying that his wife and family and children did not move to New Brunswick from British Columbia, when he changed from Regent to Crandall. The reason stated was not to uproot the family and that he was going back to BC on breaks from Crandall. It is a long way from east to west in Canada, so this seemed odd to say the least. Perhaps his ex-wife had other reasons related to the Regent scandal causing her not to accompany him to Crandall.
raswhiting,
Or there could have been other family reasons such as taking care of elderly relatives or a child who is in just the right school for them. Moncton, New Brunswick, is considerably smaller (and colder) than Vancouver.
I have received some information that, if true, may present a different reason for this action. At this point, I can’t speak about it but I hope to soon.
I had held him in high regard but I didn’t know about some of these allegations. I now question his personal ethics. I have received some information that I cannot share at this time for good reason. I hope to do so at some point.
I think that ship has sailed. Now he is being put under a microscope and I am thinking that it might be possible that it doesn’t turn out well.
Such agreements are signed by people in business in the US. Is that not the case in Canada?
My understanding is that she was a student at Crandall who graduated in 2016. Stackhouse’s divorce was reportedly finalized in Jully of this year. That would put her at @30 but it was still a big difference. I believe she is a makeup artist unless my information is bad.
Bene D,
Could you email me: dee@thewartbirgwatch. I would like to compare notes.
His former wife is still alive. I have heard from sources close to the matter that she was devastated.
Repentance is rarely practiced, IMO. The same goes for a genuine apology instead of “I could have done it better.” I do not believe that anyone who is proven to be a predator should ever be in a position of authority again.
Maurice Harting,
My informed guess is “Really, really bad.” In my opinion, I believe that the former Mrs. Stackhouse was a victim in this situation. They were married for 40+ years.
Yep, and isn’t that a travesty, especially for one who teaches ethics? This is supposed to be a Christian enterprise, but I guess that doesn’t matter these days.
It all matters.
Great comment.
Love this.
When you marry a guy who fooled around with his first wife, you would be wise to assume he would do it again. Also, when you marry a guy with whom you fooled around, it speaks volumes about your view of marriage and family. It doesn’t matter to you.
Can you ever really trust a “Christian” professor who has done such things?
Well, Chris, I guess some of us followers of Jesus expect a higher moral standard from Christian college professors. I know the world and generational views are changing in regard to such things, but the Kingdom of God remains rock solid about such transgressions.
What are the odds that any Christian college has only pure and holy faculty? I suppose it doesn’t matter these days because Christian enterprises are hard pressed to find such folks to teach our youth. Yet, eternal Scripture still shouts:
“Not many of you should become teachers, serving in an official teaching capacity, my brothers and sisters, for you know that we who are teachers will be judged by a higher standard.” (James 3:1 AMP)
I guess they don’t quote that verse to candidates for teaching positions at Christian colleges. Do they not believe it any longer?
I’m thinking of opening a retreat and gospel-centered brothel in Nevada for clergymen and high-profile men of the faith.
Reasonable rates, and anonymity guaranteed.
Maybe it might prevent scandal back home.
All I need is investors.
Max,
Really? Well, I’m divorced and remarried. Does that mean I can’t teach ethnics, or hold a position of leadership at a church? Should I disclose that if I apply for a job at a Christian university? Well, I did once, and they said “So?” The bottom line is that you can’t refuse to hire someone because they got a divorce. Nor can you fire them. Marital status is one of the protected grounds of discrimination. Everybody’s got something they wish they could undo, Max.
If it IS true that his di vorce was final this past summer and he then married again…logic means he was already in a relationship when still legally married. If this proves to be true…the man has no dignity. His using the legal system to defend himself in terms of what is technically LEGAL to say and by whom….is mostly irrelevant in terms of his morality…or rather his LACK of it. Mr Stackhouse…if you read the comments on this blog and dont like them…too bad so sad. YOU put YOURSELF under scrutiny when you got an audience. Deal with it.
Muff Potter,
What would you think of the use of AI/robotics for this business model, so that real women, Biblical or not, wouldn’t have to be involved?
dee,
I didn’t mean literally that “it doesn’t matter”. I meant that speculation about certain things is not relevant to the issue at hand: that is, whether this professor, in his position, harassed people and made them feel unsafe. That should not be allowed. Did he date then marry a student? According to the investigation, no, he didn’t. Did he cheat on his wife? Well, we can gossip and speculate about that, but in the end, there simply nothing at all to suggest that he did. Zero. So ideally we should drop it.
Chris,
Divorce is not the unpardonable sin. Neither is teaching ethics while being unethical or living immorally while teaching others not to. It’s just that I wish TWW didn’t have to exist to cover these sorry stories of Christian leaders who fail one after another. It seems that we have lost contact with the holy standard expected in the Body of Christ.
Ella,
It might be workable (advanced robotics).
I saw it in the film Blade Runner 2049.
But then again, the women in my firm would be like the high-class courtesans of old Venice in the film:
Dangerous Beauty.
Nah, the article is clickbait. As one commenter noted, the hyperlinked “growing body of research” goes to an article from bodyandsoul.com, which aside from not exactly being a research institution, also directly contradicts the premise of this article. The first line of the second paragraph literally states “the people most likely to stray were male” and goes on to specify “25 per cent of those who admitted to cheating were male, compared to 13 per cent of females”.
senecagriggs,
That’s because defamation law basically says that if you’re repeating gossip about somebody else, you have to be able to prove it’s true. Like the Old Testament rule that if you couldn’t prove an allegation against someone else, then you are given the same punishment you tried to impose on them.
Where a senior pastor repeated gossip that resulted in a colleague getting fired and the senior pastor could not prove the truth of the gossip the court would be legally, morally and scripturally right to order that the senior pastor pay the junior pastor damages.
dee,
The report said she was a student in the spring of 2022
Kate,
Heree is a link to Linked In where she states shewas there from 2013-2016.
https://ca.linkedin.com/in/sbastarache
Nope- not gonna drop it. It speaks to his character. We have information that indicates that this happened and that there are hurt people. I never desert hurting people and I assume they are reading this.
Great observation!
Now that’s one opening day I intend to attend.
They don’t expect much these days except if something breaks the law.
senecagriggs,
This blog is about the evil in the church that seems to get hidden instead of exposed. No one says the secular world is better.
I will say that the secular world seems to have a better means to expose the evil than the church does.
Now that T4G conferences in the Louisville Yum Center have ceased I think your idea may be profitable!
I am grateful that TWW chooses to shine light on badness in the Church.
The alternatives are to pretend the badness is not there, or to acknowledge it and abandon the faith.
Dee and crew, thank you!
dee,
Sorry to hear this (in the sense of the bad light in which it casts Dr. Stackhouse, and for the pain and disillusionment his first wife and family must be experiencing); I was hoping there was some sort of mitigating factor.
In the mid-’90s, a group of us talked about trying to truly live as Christians, and all of us admitted we were guilty of gossiping about others. Dr. Stackhouse said he found it helpful to imagine that every conversation was being recorded, and would be played back to the person under discussion. It’s good advice that I’ve attempted (very imperfectly) to live by.
This advice shouldn’t be necessary for believers in an omniscient god, but is helpful anyway. Your advice (to ask yourself whether Jesus would say something) complements this approach, and is excellent.
But in the same way, Dr. Stackhouse should have asked himself whether Jesus would write and send such emails, or at least asked himself if he’d be OK with the emails becoming public at some point.
As others have said, his comments in class may well have been delivered without any malice or sexist intention, and interpreted as inappropriate by students 40 years younger than himself, but the emails and the divorce certainly cast everything else in a bad light.
The other thing I find hard to grasp is how Dr. Stackhouse, after apparently being forced to resign from Regent, could possibly engage in similar self-destructive behaviour at Crandall.
I’m going to ask you for a citation, Seneca. You know, a news article. Or a court decision. Thanks in advance.
Of course this is disgusting behavior. Teachers, counselors, coaches, managers at work, etc.–any of them who are caught violating the law regarding sexual abuse/assault, they should be treated like anyone else under the law. But the difference is that churches see themselves as holier than thou and able to tell the rest of us what we should do with our lives. Sorry not sorry, but if you hold yourself out as a paragon of public virtue, you need to live like it. Also, the churches *across the board* have had this *very bad habit* of not just covering up sexual abuse/assault, but supporting the abuser as opposed to the survivor(s).
Something else Jeff:
Regent is in Vancouver – a large cosmopolitan world class city. Regent College is culturally diverse, with a lot of post grad students.
I liked NB, but I felt like I was stepping back in time. It is largely resource based, with a provincial population nearly 4 times smaller than the city of Vancouver. The rankings of Regent and Crandall are worlds apart, and understandably so.
It’s a different culture and that isn’t a criticism or excuse, it is what it is.
An 18 year old first year student sees the world differently, than they will if they are in the mid-twenties working on a Masters.
I’m not excusing harassment, and I get you aren’t either, the CBC report was clear there were issues at Regent too.
She may have gone back to school to get a masters but never completed it because romance was blooming and she could no longer be his student.
dee,
Sure. Got an email drafted and its stuck in a glitch. I’ll fire it off later today.
If one sees a pattern of behavior over several years, then one better see the pattern of behavior and not try to excuse it.
I advise Stackhouse to apologize sincerely, say he will change his ways, and work on dealing with the pain of hurting people around him. In other words, act like Jesus as far as it is possible in this world.
That’s the reason I comment here weekly and weakly.
Jeff,
Jeff, I would agree with you. His brashness, humour and sarcasm were not understood or appreciated. Students either loved him (as prof) or hated him (as person). At Regent, I sat in 5 of his graduate courses and hundreds of hours of lectures. We had many personal interactions, none were inappropriate. Yes, he is brash, arrogant, and his humour sarcastic – what probably aggravated the present situation. Yet he was always very supportive of women and guided them in their academic and professional pursuits. In today’s climate non of the characteristics I mentioned are helpful to anyone of his generation. Today, it is treated as harassment, no matter if no harassment was intended. The tone of voice alone comes across as threatening. Does it excuse him if he is truly guilty as charged? No, of course not. However, in an age where social media makes people judge and jury, I ask, how would they like to be treated, if a wrongdoing came to light? It’s easy to judge Stackhouse, tomorrow this could be me or you. In the court of public opinion, no mistake, mismanagement, and offense stands a chance. Public flogging takes the place of grace and compassion. No, I don’t mean closing an eye and hope it goes away. I mean, for us to respond in a way that honours Christ. For Crandall, to discipline the wrongdoer? Absolutely. For the wrongdoer to learn how to interact appropriately with students – female and male – yes, that should be a requirement. To express contrition, providing all facts he is accused of are true, would be necessary. In the end, he will have to account to a higher court, and that’s no joke. However, if only part of this is factual, then we become guilty of spreading false information. It is unfortunate that Crandall chose to prematurely publish the findings the way the did.
i.e. This Was Your Life by Jack Chick.
Or as Billy Graham put it during Watergate, “God has his tapes recording every minute of your life.”
“Breaking the Law” is such a secular term.
Any good lawyer can get around that.
“I don’t pay a lawyer to tell me what I want to do breaks the law.
I PAY MY LAWYER TO TELL ME HOW TO GET AWAY WITH WHAT I WANT TO DO!”
— one of the 19th Century Captains of Industry(?)
Situations differ, and I don’t think anyone is suggesting a blanket condemnation of divorce (although one or two people might “have a verse”).
I don’t know what went on in this man’s life, so I’ll suggest a hypothetical. A career academic has been married 40 years. He suddenly leaves his wife and files for divorce. Before the ink dries on the divorce decree, he marries one of his students. Whether he teaches ethics or something else, he probably violated university policy against dating a student.
Marital status might not even matter: single, married, widowed, separated, and divorced faculty members should not date students.
Regarding marital status as a protected class, I don’t know how that might apply to a (hypothetical) private religious institution. Many of them insist on total control over everything from firing pregnant single employees to ignoring the building code.
Praying for you, Linda. 🙂
I suspect you are in your mid 70’s ‘because’ you go to the forest to get downed trees for firewood! May God keep you healthy while you venture into His creation and get you home safe to enjoy a fire tonight.
What the professor did was wrong, but it’s comments like those here which make it reasonable to assume that “forgiveness” in Christianity is nothing but hot air. Any fool can “forgive” you any sin, but the way they react to you after the sin, most often indicates they haven’t “forgiven” anything, they merely mouthed words with intent to appear more harmonious with Jesus than they really were. But those are the brakes if you practice a religion that foolishly tries to demand “forgiveness” while holding the sinner’s sin against them. What exactly does “forgiveness” consist of, if the person doing the forgiving is biblically allowed to proceed exactly the way the unforgiving worldly authorities do? Is there a reason nobody has mentioned the Matthew 18 process?
senecagriggs,
In the case of my class, by proxy (telling us to “have” sex outside marriage), and these “civics” lessons were organised by the ex-RE teacher, who left in a hurry after carrying on with a boy. Just at the time when the two main forms of religion had to be trendy. So I agree with you there is too much whitewashing of the secular world by several of the wartburgers and I also see that spiritual bakruptcy of the churches (no prayer or belief) is what pulled the rug out from under the seculars. Church leaders had been warned over the years not to break faith.
Religion professor is a job for quiet people. Religion student is a job for quiet people. Making a splash? England tried it 60 years ago and it doesn’t work.
What usually happens when forgiveness is given? The person asks for forgiveness and shows a deep understanding of their sin. I would suggest you read the next post in which I deal with this subject, anticipating that a comment like this would be inevitable.
Forgiveness does not mean trust will be restored or the person is restored to a previous position.
Matthew 18? We have dealt with those widely misinterpreted verses. In this situation, it seems apparent that Stackhouse has been approached for years. I guess that some told him his comment made them uncomfortable. I bet he said, “Sorry.” His remarks following that apology indicate that he should not be trusted to change. Also, Crandall is not a church and those verses are to be applied to church disputes.
Do you want to see what repentance looks like? Read my next post. https://thewartburgwatch.com/2023/11/29/thinking-about-twws-recent-posts-what-does-true-repentance-look-like-with-special-thanks-to-david-french/
It depends. For example, did you leave a hurting spouse behind? Did you apologize? Did you date others while still married? Are you an abusive individual? I don’t particularly care if a Christian university didn’t care. That doesn’t;t mean it’s right. Take a look at what’s going on at Liberty/
Does it matter what “society” legislates? I know you know the answer. My bottom line is in Scripture and the pain of those “left behind” are my concern. Divorce is not a “So what.”
Add into that a sudden walking out of a marriage of 40+ years.
You mean “Lifstayles of the Rich and Godly/The CHRISTIAN Cuck and Cougar Show!”?
NOTHING GETS OLD-FASHIONED FASTER THAN WHAT’S TRENDY RIGHT NOW.
(for an Interior Decoration application of this, scare up a copy of Interior Desecrations by Minnesota journalist James Lileks. Here’s the online highlights: http://lileks.com/institute/interiors/index.html )
I knew Stackhouse when I was a student at Regent in the early aughts. Some of the students absolutely loved him—obviously smart, quick-witted, etc. And Stackhouse knew it, too. I absolutely hated his smugness. While his theology might be different, he struck me as deeply similar to 9 Marks’ Mark Dever.
Not surprised IN THE LEAST to learn of these allegations (and from the sound of it, their veracity).
Well, Christian folks certainly shouldn’t use that as their plumb line to measure right from wrong! Believers would do well to use the standards established in the Kingdom of God, rather than shifting societal views of morality. Nor, should they depend on U.S. & State governments to define things for us … they have legalized some of the most immoral laws on the planet!
Maurice H,
I think the students at Crandall had to force the university’s hand. See #DoBetterCrandall on Instagram. Students complaints on evaluations did not seem to go very far in getting the harassment to stop and at one university a complaint to a higher up was met with, “You don’t want to say anything. You’ll ruin his career.
“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20)
In Scripture, “Woe” means grief, anguish, affliction, wretchedness, calamity, or trouble. A society which calls evil good and good evil would do well to heed this warning from God.
That’s what I thought.
Headless Unicorn Guy,
Grinding plastic vegetables, and tartan cushions, are a no-no, but I love the bathroom!
Seriously: religious authorities treating our belief and our prayers with our God as their latest sonic wallpaper deserve our suspicion. I queried it as an inarticulate (enthusiastic modernist) 11 year old.
Only a cruel man would fire a single woman carrying a child.
Knowing galldang well that she needs her health insurance and employee benefits to stay afloat.
Greg,
Mt 18 is for when the parties are equals and one of them not an authority. There are cases when approaching an authority who has wronged someone, ensues in wheedling or reprisal and isn’t safe. In many cases, the wheedling stage has already been gone through if a “relationship” cools.
Basically when someone says to someone (even an authority) “stop doing that to me” let alone “admit to your superiors your wrongdoing” that’s Mt 18 already fulfilled plenty.
I’m wondering where the faculty who have already left, fit in.
Connecting with my comment on the following thread: when politically connected church bosses abandoned belief and prayer in the mid 1960s for influencing as their means for dominionism, and body / gender theology was launched as their political fix, and the supreme (and exemplary) denomination forbad its sacred professionals to resign, that entrenched not only the sort of occurrences we lament at TWW, but the worldwide promoting of sexual and gender related violence, and verbal harassment and warped propaganda such as I and my peers were subjected to in our classroom aged 14 and the universal loneliness.
In fact it was in the 1920s that churches became totalitarian about what was termed “birth control” and started their ceasing of supplication for addressing the One Who could help. Thus providing a handy excuse to look trendy by apparently relenting on their deliberate unfaithfulness.
Dominionists (fuelled by dispensationism) sell dominionism on the basis of its real spiritual power and when queried, they claim it was only advertising and “we” always knew advertising was only lies, right?
The constant theme: their obsession about our body parts, when we are children and adults, now spread to the world’s institutions.
Anyone clever enough to be a professor – even one younger than 68 – should have joined the dots and bought out of almost all kinds of religion. Otherwise how can they be in charge of a curriculum?
I’m not sure we are required to “forget” after “forgiveness.” I don’t even think it’s a good thing. In the words of the great theologian, “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.”
Headless Unicorn Guy,
HUG, had it occurred to me that any other TWW reader would be a fellow Lileks reader, I would have suspected you. 😉
In Interior Descrations, some of the room treatments would have worked with (like keeping the elaborate floral-patterned sofa but going to a plain background of walls and carpet carrying through the colors), but everything in the room was the same pattern & color to the point the furniture blended completely into the room b/g. Perfecct camouflage.
Best way to describe a lot of those Trendy(TM) decors was “Badly Overdone”.
Like today’s “Aesthetics look”, where everything in the entire house – including the walls, ceiling, carpet/floor, tables, chairs, appliances, even personal possessions and possibly clothing – is ALL an off-white light beige. No other color allowed. A Minimalist Interior Desecration.
My own preferences?
Harmonizing Earth tones with natural wood trim and furniture.
researcher,
Praying.
Praying. God bless.
Yes.
I was a student of Stackhouse’s at Regent. I witnessed him blast a student for asking a legitimate question about a course syllabus. I had heard of students filing complaints about him, but I was only aware of complaints about his rudeness. Not surprised at all surprised about these recent reports.
Jeff,
Thanks for the prayers! Things went well. So much easier to do my job now that I can see, lol. Of course as the pickup gets loaded, the nose still points a bit upwards making it impossible to see directly in front of it, but hubs keeps a close eye out for stumps as he directs me. This is a new skill set for us, and this year he has been choking multiple logs for me to pull out of the woods at the same time. My job is to get them on the landing (we use forest trails or county roads for that) without snagging them on deadfalls or old stumps or rocks or other trees. We did kill one of our two chain saws, but the dead one is over a quarter century old, so deserves its rest. Replacement on the way. He has spent the rest of the week splitting and stacking.
Sorry for the off topic drift.
IMO, rudeness exhibited by a professor at a Christian institution indicates a deeper spiritual/psychological problem. To demonstrate an arrogant lack of empathy for students by being insolent to them in class is a way of hurting others to assert their power over them. Instead of being a positive role model, they become negative mentors of youth and have no place as a teacher in the Body of Christ. A rude professor is capable of anything. “Rude pastor”, “rude elder”, “rude Christian teacher” are oxymorons in the Church of the Living God.
Jeff,
Dear Bene,
I found your initial report interesting. But I do not think it is fair to the former Mrs. Stackhouse to wander into speculation of her behaviour. We already know that he was « forced » to leave Regent, so there were some concerns in 2015 – by speculating on her behaviour are you not going down the DARVO line? Just a concern. Furthermore there are interviews with Regent alumni/former students who do not seem surprised.
senecagriggs,
Type Example: WHATABOUT-ISM.
Ummm, comment is not a good idea.
ER,
Alternatively, the senior pastor may have been positive that the young pastor was an abuser, but had no legal proof of same (e.g. may have been the only witness, or may have heard the testimony of a credible victim who refused to talk to anyone else).
If, under those circumstances, the senior pastor proceeded to do the right thing, even knowing he would be sued successfully and ruined financially, I would consider the him a hero.
Jeff,
Where did you read about Stackhouse’s divorce? I’ve been looking and haven’t been able t find anything.
yoda22,
He was divorced in July of this year according to some who are close to the situation.
We don’t have many of those these days.
When a wife has to do the best she can to hide black eyes, split lips, and cracked ribs, Scripture can go take a hike.
That’s my bottom line.
See perhaps Duncan v. Peterson [No. 2-09-1078 filed 2010] Illinois 2nd District Appeals Court
Walking away from Omelas?
MEEMCA35,
Replicating goodness like those purveyors do is one thing. Roland Barthes in his essay Loyola points to the industrialising of religion since the 16 th century.
(Almost off topic, he also wrote an essay on Plastic.)
senecagriggs,
Or very slight variation, mass incitement of 14 year olds to predation, ringleader: ex religion teacher.
Jeff,
I know his new wife and she’s in her late 30’s. She’s not fresh out of high school or anything. She’s divorced, herself, with children and she is a brilliant and strong woman. I don’t know anything about him, but I trust her wisdom and judgement.
Stackhouse and his wife have posted two new and interesting responses on his website. He is suing Crandall.
James,
I realize that Dr Stackhouse’s recent statement appears to be self-serving, but it does appear the situation is more nuanced than it initially appeared to be.
His new wife was effectively not his student, and is c. 25 years (rather than 40 years) younger than he is.
There remain the issues of him and his first wife divorcing, and the allegations of abusive behaviour at both Regent and Crandall.
Stackhouse has written articles on why he criticizes public figures in public forums. As a teacher in the church, he too should be subject to scrutiny regarding his divorce and true reasons for leaving Regent.
Rosemary,
Thanks for the additional comment. Not sure I’d say he was arrogant – but when you’re arguably 30 basis points higher on the IQ scale in a classroom of already advanced students……hey, maybe? To me, he always did his best to make sure no question or comment by any student, no matter how foolish, was turned around to sound intelligent.
His raw intellectual horsepower was ridiculous. One of my favorite parlor tricks he did was on the first day of Systematic A was to go through all 90+ students and ask their first and last name, favorite color, ice cream, and where they were from. Then he’d go through and repeat them again with 100% accuracy. It was an (arrogant??) way of quickly establishing who was in charge. I loved it. 😉 Great fun.