Photo by Caleb Stokes on Unsplash
“We find in our Prayer Book that Psalm 110 is one of those appointed for Christmas Day. We may at first be surprised by this. There is nothing in it about peace and goodwill, nothing remotely suggestive of the stable at Bethlehem. … The note is not ‘Peace and goodwill’ but ‘Beware. He’s coming’.” — CS Lewis: Reflections on the Psalms
This is not meant to be a political commentary. Instead, it is intended to show how some SBC leaders protect their own.
Immanuel Baptist Arkansas and covered up sex abuse.
Julie Roys posted Prominent Arkansas Baptist Church Kept Former Staffer’s Child Sex Abuse Secret for 7 Years.
The controversy concerns Patrick Stephen Miller, who served as assistant director of children’s ministry at Immanuel Baptist Church (IBC) in Little Rock, Ark., from May 2014 to January 2016.
Miller was arrested in December 2018 and charged with second-degree assault for molesting a girl in an IBC Sunday school classroom in 2015. In a plea deal in January 2022, Miller, now 37, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor harassment.
However, in March 2016, about two months after Miller left his job at IBC, families told IBC leaders that Miller had molested their children, according to a statement released to The Roys Report (TRR) by IBC.
The church said it immediately reported the crimes to authorities.
What happened next should not come as a surprise to TWW readers. Church leaders knew about this in 2016 and even reported it to the police. But it seems they forgot a step. They “overlooked” reporting the information to the church body.
So, when did church members learn about the abuser?
Seven.years.later!!!
Miller, the abuser, wanted to get his despicable court records sealed and went to court. On December 10, 2023, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported Request for sealed record of ex-church worker is contested.
A former Immanuel Baptist Church ministry employee who was accused of sexually abusing an elementary school-age child and received a suspended jail sentence as part of plea agreement is asking a Little Rock judge to seal his court record.
The same former employee remains under investigation after a second victim came forward, according to court documents.
Patrick Stephen Miller, 37, who was originally charged with second-degree sexual assault, pleaded guilty instead to misdemeanor harassment in January 2022.
He was given a one-year suspended sentence, with 19 days credit for time already served, and wasn’t required to register as a sex offender, according to court documents.
Miller’s motion, which was filed in July, is opposed by two of his former students — the initial victim and a second student who has stepped forward, according to a court filing.
Let me make this simple. This sexual abuser of children got a sweet plea deal and didn’t even have to register as a sex offender. But that’s not good enough. He wants the records sealed. But, this came as a shock to the good members of Immanuel Baptist.
News that Miller has a criminal conviction — and wants it sealed — has come as a surprise to many of Immanuel’s members.
Gates said Steven Smith, the lead pastor since 2017, did not inform the congregation at the time Miller was arrested, charged with a crime, convicted or sentenced.
In a letter Friday to the congregation’s deacons, ministers, finance and personnel teams and Sunday School leaders, Gates criticized the lack of disclosure, saying it had prevented the families of other victims from learning the truth and coming forward.
Smith withheld the news even though the first victim’s family had asked him to inform the parents in 2018 of other “potentially affected girls,” Gates wrote.
Who is Gates? He is a stand-up attorney, pointing fingers at his church.
Joseph Gates, an attorney and Sunday School teacher at Immanuel with three young daughters, is representing Miller’s former students.
They were in third or fourth grade at the time Miller abused them, Gates said.
So, Steven Smith, pastor since 2017, had to address the church. It’s the typical blah, blah, blah defense. “Wished we had done better.” Now, “we have Ministry Safe advising us.”
Steven Smith is an SBC insider, and Immanuel Baptist is a well-heeled SBC church that Bill Clinton attended.
I bet you slapped yourself upside your head. Now you remember this church. The Roys Report stated:
Immanuel Baptist, which was founded in 1892, remains one of Little Rock’s most prominent evangelical churches. Former President Bill Clinton was once a member there.
Pastor Steven Smith, who’s been at IBC since 2017, also is quite prominent within the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). His father is former SBC President Bailey Smith. And Steven Smith served as a vice president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. He also served on the preaching team at Prestonwood Baptist church in Dallas and currently is a preaching professor at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Mo.
What does Al Mohler have to do with this?
Mark Wingfield (rapidly becoming one of my favorite commentators) at Baptist News Global wrote On Al Mohler, Paige Patterson, Bill Clinton, Immanuel Baptist Church, and Baptist polity and politics. Mohler has been speaking out of both sides of his mouth, and Wingfield nails it.
First, how did Mohler want Immanuel Baptist to handle Bill Clinton’s dalliance with Lewinsky?
A Baptist Press story published on Sept. 11, 1998, and written by none-other than Russell Moore — who at the time was working as Mohler’s apologist — said this:
“Church discipline according to the New Testament, Mohler explained, aims toward the goal of restoration, not retribution. A church member’s sin, Mohler said, is not the problem of only the erring individual, but is in fact “a matter of accountability of the whole congregation.” He said a failure to exercise church discipline would demonstrate “a very superficial view of sin and an inadequate understanding of what it means to be the church.”
“The situation in Washington is spoken of, appropriately so, as a crisis,” Mohler explained. “But the deeper crisis I’m concerned about for the president of the United States is as a brother in Christ and it is the state of his soul.
“The last thing he needs is to be left alone,” Mohler said. “The last thing he needs is for the church to become complicit in his sin.””
He was concerned that the church wouldn’t discipline Clinton and, therefore, be complicit in sin…
Second, how does Mohler admonish the few who care about what he has to say on the lack of response for SEVEN YEARS by the SBC insider Steven Smith?
“Avoid snap judgments.”
Here’s what the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported this week about the Little Rock church:
R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., this week cautioned against making snap judgments, while also emphasizing the importance of protecting Southern Baptists from abuse.
“It is important that we respect the responsibility of local churches to deal with these matters and to do so rightly. At the same time, we must call upon those churches to do what is right, just and honest about any situation in which there is an accusation of abuse, and the first priority must be the protection of the vulnerable. There are principles we should all follow, and it is good that we remember that our first instinct must be to protect the vulnerable, to contact authorities and to be fully committed to all that is required for the protection of those who are endangered,” he said.
What didn’t he say? Not a word about the church being complicit in the sin of the abuser of little children, Patrick Stephen Miller. Not a word about a superficial view of the sin of child sex abuse. Smith is an insider, and Mohler plays the game quite well. I do wonder how well, though. There is the issue of members fleeing the denomination, and some people claim the crisis of sex abuse in the SBC may have contributed to it.
Wingfield drove his point home.
If the state of Bill Clinton’s soul was Mohler’s true concern in 1998, then the state of Steven Smith’s soul in 2023 ought to be too. As well as the state of the souls of the several children reportedly abused at the Little Rock church.
Finally,
Wingfield is correct. Steven Smith should be ashamed, but he won’t be. He is one of the anointed. It seems to me that the SBC is far more concerned about one of its own than they are about the little children who continue to be abused in SBC churches and ministries around the world. Jesus was born in a manger, not a million-dollar home. The angels sang to the dirt poor shepherds, not to the anointed religious leaders. Jesus chose fishermen, not the well-heeled. He regularly spoke out against the religious leaders of the day. As we approach Christmas, may we remember that Jesus chose to be born of a teenage mother who was not a member of the upper class and certainly would never be a member of the anointed leaders of the SBC. It’s time for some introspection.
Yet another despicable display of double standards by so called “leadership”.
This is very sad – the hypocrisy is blatant and so obvious to anyone who has kept up with Mohler through the years. I used to respect him and read his online commentary, but his flip-flop on Trump, his comments about marriage/singleness, and his support of CJ Mahaney have just soured me on anything he has to say – I don’t trust his integrity or his judgement any longer. To support the religious elite (Big Eva Good-Ol’-Boy Network) above women and children who have been victimized by them is unconscionable, but sadly typical.
Jesus had a word for these types. I would have thought that Mohler would have learned a lesson from supporting Mahaney far too long…
What are the laws regarding a sex offender registering as a sex offender? Something seems off here.
What made this arbitrary in this case?
Slick Willie’s skillset is a lot like that of a lot of the SBC preacher boys. They recognise himm as one of their own, only now “working for the other side”. That6why they hate him so much.
Had Clinton been the “lead pastor” of an SBC church and been accused of the same transgressions, the SBC would have ignored the problems until no longer possible, then they would have downplayed them, give them the “we are all sinners” treatment, delayed, obfuscated, maybe disciplined him “for a season”, and finally “restored” him in 1-2-3-standing ovation.
And if the SBC hadn’t restored him, there’s always Robert Morris, who’ll restore anybody and anything.
Here’s another situation of church leaders whose Christianity is not morally credible.
Nobody wants to use counterfeit money, except the producers. It’s fake. Moreover it’s a Federal crime and it’s useless & worthless.
But we still transact with money although there’s counterfeits in the mix of our system.
I like those little pens that the cashiers use to verify any bill that’s labeled 20 or above. Simple procedure to not get scammed with bigger looking bills posing as worth a lot but actually completely worthless, fake, and criminal. Posing as representing the Treasury while actually just a picture on cheap paper. Fake. The experts can even feel the difference of the cheap paper.
“BUT THAT’S DIFFERENT!
TOUCH NOT MINE ANOINTED!!!!!”
WHY?
WHEN GAWD’S ANOINTED SPECIAL PETS CAN DO NO WRONG?
GAWD HATH SAID!
“Money for Nuthin
And the Chicks for Free!”
— Dire Straits
I wonder if any pressure was put on the courts to let this guy off easy. I would not be surprised since I have seen this sort of “advocacy” for the abuser by church leaders. I saw it for the first time in 2008. I coulnd’t believe it.
I’d rather rub elbows with Bill Clinton, than Al Mohler anyday.
Possibly the intermingled church and political situation in a state such as Arkansas. Not trying to be political; just stating the real atmosphere in such states. There may well be people in the church who are also in the government helping to cover the churches backside.
The SBC really needs to get over caring what Al Mohler has to say. He is not the final authority on anything … Jesus is. And as Dee notes, Jesus “regularly spoke out against the religious leaders of the day.”
Pastor Smith’s SBC pedigree should never be accepted as a cover for covering child abuse. Or has Mohler bailed him out? “Avoid snap judgments”?! Mr. Smith has already admitted to withholding information from the congregation about the abuse. There’s no snap judgment here.
Midwestern Seminary has recently accepted Smith’s resignation as an adjunct professor there. What will Immanuel do?
The SBC needs a good dentist for a Mohler extraction, but it will be painful nevertheless, especially now the worst of the calvinistas (Ascol et al.) and the worst of the Patterson crowd have gotten together and are ganging up on everybody else.
Toxic, unless both institutions work to uphold the law.
Just guessing that this type of collaboration is up to no good, right from the jump.
Therefore, then criminal collaboration. Deadly for the communities they serve.
Sometimes public servants serve neither the public nor do they serve justice.
Believe it. The mob selected thug Barabbas to live, and the Son of God, Jesus, for execution.
Imagine back in the day, casting that vote, then witnessing the execution of the Son of God literally nailed to a cross to die slow death as a public spectacle.
Gut wrenching. But they cast the vote!
Sounds like a God-thing, huh? NOT!
SBC is done … it just hasn’t quit yet.
How many times on TWW have we seen church elders/members rally around a bad-boy pastor, while ignoring the cries of his victims?
“God does not forget the cry of the afflicted and abused” (Psalms 9:12). “Whoever shuts his ear to the cries of those in need will himself call out and not be answered” (Proverbs 21:13). Be careful, church, which side you take.
Everytime Mohler comes up, the first verse that pops to mind is Paul’s warning to the church: “Beware of Alexander the coppersmith, he has done us much harm” (2 Timothy 4). Mohler and his Mohlerite New Calvinists have caused much harm in the SBC as they bullied their way into takeover of traditional churches and SBC’s church planting program, replacing SBC’s default non-Calvinist belief and practice for 150 years with reformed theology. Preaching grace-this and grace-that, their movement has nothing to do with the Grace of Jesus.
Ava Aaronson,
The laws seem to differ from state to state and first of all, there must be a conviction and if I am correct, it must be a felony, not just a misdemeanor. And then there are different tiers, each with a corresponding time alloted to remain on the registry. Then there are laws for how an offender can get off the list ‘early’. No simple answer
““It is important that we respect the responsibility of local churches to deal with these matters and to do so rightly. At the same time, we must call upon those churches to do what is right, just and honest about any situation in which there is an accusation of abuse, and the first priority must be the protection of the vulnerable. There are principles we should all follow, and it is good that we remember that our first instinct must be to protect the vulnerable, to contact authorities and to be fully committed to all that is required for the protection of those who are endangered,” he said. Mohler
__________
Well said by Mohler
senecagriggs,
As Dee noted “Mohler has been speaking out of both sides of his mouth.” At least he gets it right sometimes.
Dear Wartburgers,
You fought the good fight in 2023.
“The LORD bless you and keep you; The LORD make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you; The LORD lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace.” (Numbers 6:24-26)
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
See you next year!
It is extremely “Well said” as a PR statement because it gives the appearance of saying the right words while avoiding the point. Slick.
The majority of children who are victims of sexual abuse do not tell, and not telling compounds the harm, as the child can go on for years believing it was their fault, or even being more vulnerable to other predators. When they get older, they will often also blame themselves for not telling. Seven years have passed before the other victims might be identified and able to get help.
Millstones. For the abuser, for the person who covered up the sin of the abuser and left the other potential victims without their best chance for healing. Where was the concern for the parents’ rights to know what could have happened to their child?
Mohler was right in what he said should be done about Clinton. The president of the United States is arguably the most powerful man in the world. The power imbalance between Clinton and a young starry-eyed Lewinsky was Grand-Canyon sized. Her life was ruined. He navigated through an impeachment for lying under oath to cover up his sin and it was pretty smooth sailing for him after that. Mohler did not fall back on the “Respect the local churches to deal with these matters” in that case. He went beyond it to tell them what should be done and to spell out the consequences of a “Failure to exercise church discipline.” It was quite clear what he was advising their leadership to do.
Mohler used a different standard when addressing Clinton’s abuse of an intern and the abuse of children by a children’s minister and the complicity of the lead pastor in covering it up rather than acting make sure that any other potential victims got the care they needed. Clinton was arguably the most powerful man in the world, but the actions of a pastor/shepherd have power beyond that because their actions have the potential to impact the victim’s faith. You would think someone like Mohler would care about that those potential consequences.
Had Mohler applied similar standards to those he used for Clinton, his statement might have read:
We must call upon those churches to do what is right, just and honest about any situation in which there is an accusation of abuse, and the first priority must be the protection of the vulnerable. There are principles we should all follow, and it is good that we remember that our first instinct must be to protect the vulnerable *which includes other potential victims*, to contact authorities and to be fully committed to all that is required for the protection of those who are endangered.
A church member’s sin, and even more so the sin of its pastor to fail in his duty to protect other potential victims and to honor the right of parents to have the knowledge to act on their own children’s behalf, is not the problem of only the erring individual, but is in fact a matter of accountability of the whole congregation, and indeed of our denomination. The failure of a pastor to protect the lambs of his church is a sin worthy of a millstone, according to our Lord. A failure to exercise church discipline in this case would demonstrate a very superficial view of the egregious sin of child sexual abuse, the egregious sin of failing to protect other vulnerable victims, and an inadequate understanding of what it means to be the church.”
“The situation in the SBC is spoken of, appropriately so, as a crisis.” “The last thing we need is for the SBC to once again become complicit in this heinous sin.”
These days, can you expect anything else from a ManaGAWD?
(Come to think of it, wasn’t “Slick Deceiver” one of the two archetypes of Antichrist?)
As in “it’s dead but it won’t lie down”?
I suggest any one of the ways of dealing with the Undead.
Seneca’s really angling for a “Tap night” invitation and initiation into Dodeka, isn’t he?
Isn’t Government the final peak of the Seven Mountains Mandate?
Not just faith. Mental health, emotional wellbeing, ability to trust, form relationships, etc.
Certainly a pastor should not harm someone’s faith. Still, I don’t believe a loving God would shut victims out of heaven simply because abuse caused them to leave the church behind. The millstone belongs on the villain, not the victim.
“Immanuel Baptist, which was founded in 1892, remains one of Little Rock’s most prominent evangelical churches. Former President Bill Clinton was once a member there.”
Clinton even sang in the church choir! I’ll not say any more, lest I be accused of gossip, false witness, or something of the sort.
Too bad he took the mark…..
I am an admirer of Al Mohler; listen to his podcast “The Briefing” frequently. He at times has some amazing insights into the culture from a Biblical perspective. But I’m that guy who likes to read and interact with various perspectives including T.W.W.
_______
Clinton/Lewinski – 1995 [29 years ago] I don’t know what Mohler would say 30 years later. All I know is what he says/writes now. He seems very concerned about victims of pastoral abuse and the need for the Evangelical church to deal rightly with evil within their midst.
Especially if said person has been “softened up” before to where he/she already doesn’t have much in the way of “emotional wellbeing, ability to trust, form relationships, etc”.
At which point we’re into “Break That Bruised Reed!” country.
At least not intentionally (like the MenaGAWD that usually get famous on this blog).
Those Real True Christians DO!
With some of them, you’d think God’s only reason to exist is to SMITE! SMITE! SMITE! PUNISH! PUNISH! PUNISH!
Weaponized God, Weaponized Bible, Weaponized Gospel.
“Great Photo, Lovely Life” is an HBO doc.
The doc “is ultimately about the incalculable value of truth, and the pains that might be required to reach it. Despite what Keats said, it can be quite ugly. And yet it remains as essential as the air we breathe.” – from Chris Vognar’s Dec. 5, 2023 “Rolling Stone” review.
A NYT photojournalist documents her doctor grandfather’s secret pedophilia as a medical professional seeing clients. The law and DOJ were on the pedophile’s side while light on justice and weak for victims.
Ok, TWW people, stay with me here a moment.
This doc is when a granddaughter contacts the victims of her pedophile grandpa doctor, to apologize, let them tell their stories, and help them find restoration after what pervert doctor grandpa did to destroy them as kids, so “he could get it off.”
They were little kids! The pervert doctor said the little girls “wanted and enjoyed it”.
Anyway, the granddaughter steps up. Who does that? And then films it to help others? Churches?
Final statement: “This film is dedicated to anyone carrying the weight of secrets that they shouldn’t have to keep.”
Film genre: Secrets church kids NEVER have to keep.
So, film and document. Clean house.
Ava Aaronson,
Predators often deceive and seduce. The victim’s distress doesn’t always form when the harm begins. Some victims hide their terror. Some believe the predator loves them, because that’s what he keeps saying. It’s all a big lie, with the predator lying to himself too.
Most people have a conscience, so it’s hard to fathom the way predators think and act.
As a much younger person, I avoided the topic of predators and the harm they inflict for this very reason. My thought was: Leave it up to the shrinks, profilers, and LE professionals who really study this stuff. They’re the ones with know how who need to deal with the monsters. This is beyond me and has nothing to do with normal people.
Come to find out, we have predators in pulpits that normal people support. We have the guy next door serialist embedded in our nice neighborhood who covertly goes by BTK. BTK was the president of his Lutheran church council. It was his church computer that outed him.
It seems we all must step up, become informed, and do our part. Jesus said to “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
After listening to John Lennox as Dee posted, I’ve been looking at John’s Gospel. Turns out, Jesus, in a rage of anger, cleansed the Temple of business people right from the jump at the beginning of His ministry.
Today, Jesus would, in a rage of anger, cleanse our churches by evicting sellers, sexual predators, and powermongers – monsters all.
So WWJD? It’s on us, what we must do.
So here we are at TWW, sharing and learning about this stuff, to be able to do the right thing, even as normal 9-5 people who go home to dinner with family every night, then read the paper and watch the news from the lazyboy. Normal.
Yes, and they would love to have a ‘Christian’ dictatorship.
I for one only managed a few episodes out of curiosity, and was really baffled how someone producing such a shallow mix of platitudes, prejudice and outright political partisanship was ever seen as the SBC’s great intellectual.
I may, of course, be wrong – maybe the ones I didn’t read/listen to are much better, but I doubt it. And don’t get me started on his opinion pieces for World (wng.org). The German expession here is “Zum Fremdschämen!”, meaning it is so cringeworthy that you feel embarrassed on the other person’s behalf.
Small wonder people don’t take Evangelicals seriously. With such a level of reflection and argument, how can they?
Isn’t it funny?
Virtually all of human life and endeavor is politically driven in one form or another.
Thx for your reply.
Wondering … are the predators that frequent churches as their hunting grounds knowledgeable about where they can get away with their crimes?
Criminals usually know laws far better than the innocent. Just sayin’.
Maybe I should put this on Dee’s Sunday post, but……
Christmas is almost a Christmas Past, now. I’ve been busy…… dr. appointments, shopping, wrapping, cooking and cleaning and then cooking some more, loading the car and driving ……….
II had a wonderful Christmas Eve dinner with family I haven’t seen since last year and a wonderful Christmas Day brunch with family I see every day……. excellent cooking (tooooooo much food!) excellent company, old stories…… I shouldn’t need anything to eat for at least a week!
I just want to say to Dee, GBTC, and all of the TWW family that I hope all of you have enjoyed, or are about to enjoy an even better Christmas celebration this year.
Thx, and appreciate your sharing of Christmas celebrations and memories. God bless.
Funny, but it makes me want to cry. It just shouldn’t be so. I guess power is the real issue, not love empathy, well being for others. Such a sad state of affairs.
Did you have squirrel dumplings this year?!
SUCCESSFUL ones have to be.
Remember: We only hear about the dumb ones who got caught.
Max,
No, but we did have chicken and dumplings! Does that count?
My cousin’s 8 yo son says his favorite dish is my sweet potato casserole. He also claims he hates nutmeg, says he won’t touch anything with nutmeg in it. Thanksgiving, he asked how I made the casserole, so I kept it brief.
Max……. it’s a recipe I made up. I wanted my casserole to taste like my grandma’ sw. pot, pie, so I put mace and nutmeg in my sw. pot. casserole. Uhm…… his mom wants my recipe. I think I’m going to have a heart to heart talk with the boy about how some things can be very, very good in moderation, and really bad in excess.
Headless Unicorn Guy,
“The Hunting Ground” doc is about college campus assaults on women and the institutional cover ups.
Higher Ed institutions cover up and deny “the epidemic of college sexual assault.”
“The Hunting Ground” website asks their audience if they want to stop the assaults, and offers steps.
The website also exposes institutional leaders who actively seek to silence victims, including survivors testifying in the film.
Turns out, trusting a higher education institution to protect and defend is misguided and sometimes deadly.
It seems trusting a religious institution is similar. This is the ONE area where all religious God-seeking people should find unity. Everyone should take every step necessary to protect children and young people. Unfortunately, we just don’t see this. At all.
A database of where Court record registered paedophiles are embedded in churches would be helpful. This involves minors.
Among adults, every woman should do due diligence, seeking Court records of men with whom they engage. Every woman owes this to herself.
Nancy2(aka Kevlar),
can i have your chicken and dumplings recipe?
Nancy2(aka Kevlar),
Just tell the child that it’s a top secret recipe, passed down through the generations, and you can’t reveal the ingredients … most kids understand things like that.
On the other hand … I once revealed my recipe for “Max’s Famous Biscuits & Gravy” to my grandson. I told him the secret ingredient for the crunchy drop biscuits was Crisco and asked him not to tell anyone. A couple weeks later, his elementary teacher told me she knew what the secret ingredient was in my famous biscuits. You can’t trust ‘every’ kid with secrets.
Good points. I’m on a committee in my denomination to try to prevent child sexual abuse as much as possible. What we are learning is that “background checks” vary from company to company. The best ones check not only registries, but also criminal records.
If he gets his record sealed, there will be absolutely no way for a prospective employer to find out that he is a high risk person.
As to Christmas dinner recipes, we went with homemade chili (red) and posole (for me), along with homemade tortillas, pecan pie, and ice cream on it. You know, add in tamales and it will likely be the menu at the Marriage Supper.
Prayers appreciated: dh fell and cut both hands, one pretty badly. It likely could have used stitches but we did not want to go to the er or urgent care since our area is having a bad surge of several nasty viruses, including flu, rsv, and the ever present covid. So we have done the home first aid route. It seems to be healing fine, but keeping him from over doing with it so it can heal faster has been a bit of a pain.
Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and stay safe ya’ll.
Between out-and-out coverup, protection by ministry buds, and sealed records, one has to wonder how many sex offenders are circulating in SBC ranks!
… A denomination that is proactive and doing research re: the violation of children, IOW the destruction of and sabotage of childhood for children at church. A step in the right direction. Thanks for your work.
Re: sealing the records of predators, churches should do their civic duty and be against this.
All on behalf of protecting children and youth.
Note: victims are a living record and they NEVER forget. Sealing records does NOTHING for victims and future victims. Sealing records uniquely serves the predator ONLY.
Sealing records never serves the community. Predators covertly embedded in the community make a community dangerous.
Of course, if the predators prefer children, there are adults, particularly men, who will look the other way … particularly men running the church, who blame and subjugate women and girls.
In the documentary “Great Photo, Lovely Life” the predator destroyed the childhoods of children in his medical practice, in his family (every generation), in his community, in his neighborhood. As a “Christian” man, this continued throughout his life to the very end, even as he anticipated Heaven with the Jesus who loves and accepts him, as is.
His medical partner insisted that his victims forgive his predator partner. This medical partner prayed over victims as he insisted that they forgive so that they would be “healed.”
The medical partner did separate from the doctor predator when his wife discovered the predator on top of their daughter.
Fired and forgiven, the predator went on to violate more children. He moved on, and never changed.
The predator himself, right to the end as he continued as a predator, insisted that God forgave him, and all would be well for Eternity together in Heaven. He seems totally comfortable as a predator embraced by God’s love among colleagues, family, community,… and church?
Other than the praying medical partner, church members that embraced and included this predator were not interviewed in the documentary.
Heaven: one joyful orgy among predators and victims? Something for survivors and predators and supporting cast to look forward to? For Eternity?
1 Corinthians 5 recommends that Christians separate from “Christian” churchgoing predators, to not even eat together:
“Shouldn’t you rather have gone into mourning and have put out of your fellowship the man who has been doing this? For my part, even though I am not physically present, I am with you in spirit. As one who is present with you in this way, I have already passed judgment in the name of our Lord Jesus on the one who has been doing this. So when you are assembled and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord.”
Guessing the denom with the committee trying to prevent child sexual abuse AMAP is neither SBC nor IFB.
I’m not a lawyer, but here’s my understanding.
In general, it would be just about impossible to seal a record of a conviction of a felony sexual offense. There’s a slightly greater chance of sealing the record of a misdemeanor sexual offense.
This case has a loophole because the charges were changed to misdemeanor harassment. However, in this case, there’s also an ample searchable record about this individual that any employer could find.
Sealed records exist for reasons. They help the wrongly accused to escape from the shadow of false charges—which do happen. Records are sometimes sealed because, say, a young accused person went through a lengthy court diversion process, showed remorse, completed course work and community service, etc. In some states, certain misdemeanor charges are automatically sealed/expunged after 7 years.
Now THAT tells you something.
It only got real for the medical partner when it was HIS daughter getting raped.
Sounds like the church where Christian Monist grew up, the one with the predator asst pastor or elder or choir leader whose pedophilia was an open secret. When a family with kids joined that church, the Respectable Pillars of the Church Community would steer them to Pastor Pedo so he would rape THEIR kide, not MINE. All with Praise and Glory to God In Jesus’ Name, of course.
Maybe the question should be “how many are NOT”?
It’d probably be a smaller number, much easier to count.
Was this about the guy in Corinth whose kink was so extreme “it has no name, even among the Goyim!”?
Employers do this little dance called “Pass the Trash” where they covertly lay off a predatory employee with the send off of an amazing recommendation. The predator gets employed elsewhere, new hunting ground, with no controversy at either place of employment.
So says a friend in HR.
Unfortunately, the Duggar clan produced their own predator(s) from within. Merry Christmas. Christmas with the Duggars. Showbiz Evangelical Christianity.
Headless Unicorn Guy,
It’s seriously off the mark when Christian leaders preach and practice that the answer for predators is for them to be comfortably employed, and married with children. Maybe even be the president of their church council. All the while they are covertly embedded dangerous predators in their communities, as the honest truth.
BTK, the Long Island serialist, the Times Square serialist, and the Golden Gate serialst were ALL joyfully and respectfully employed as well as married with children.
To name a few. There are many. Blows that respectably employed while joyfully married with kids, church teaching practice right to bits. It’s church leadership teaching theory that is despicable nonsense. Dangerous teaching.
Roy Hazelwood, FBI profiler, may he RIP, was a Christian who wrote books AGAINST this church leadership teaching and practice nonsense.
That false “respectably employed while married with children” rationale practiced and taught in churches PROVIDES COVER IN CHURCHES FOR PREDATORS. Duh.
What about the guy in Idaho who describes the intimate love relationship between a man and woman as some sort of SM situation:
“In other words, however we try, the sexual act cannot be made into an egalitarian pleasuring party. A man penetrates, conquers, colonizes, plants. A woman receives, surrenders, accepts.”
Note: this comment is NOT to open up a creepy discourse here. Without knowing anything but the obvious about SM interactions, just saying that this above description by a Christian pastor and leader seems to veer more in the SM arena than normal respectful loving intimacy.
(Again, please, no creepy details and descriptions necessary. Let’s not go beyond the obvious.)
Ava Aaronson,
The guy in Idaho is sick, he really is.
Yep, and promoted by The Gospel Coalition for years … the right theological flavor, I suppose.
Muff Potter,
He runs his empire.
Purity of Ideology, Comrades.
Purity of Ideology.
A RAPIST mentality.
Or the closing riff of the Blue Oyster Cult song:
“DOMINANCE! SUBMISSION!
DOMINANCE! SUBMISSION!
DOMINANCE! SUBMISSION!
DOMINANCE! SUBMISSION!
DOMINANCE! SUBMISSION!
DOMINANCE! SUBMISSION! SUBMISSION! SUB-SUBMISSION!”
I would not be surprised if this CHRISTIAN Pastor would be too much for the BDSM world.
I understand the BDSM community DOES understand the concept of “Consent”.
And this ManaGAWD sure doesn’t.
By “serialist”, do you mean “serial killer”, “serial rapist”, or both?
This isn’t YouTube whose Algorithms crop out words to the point you can’t understand the soundtrack and videographers have to talk around the subject to the point it gets as convoluted as North Korean Marxspeak.
And in any case, didn’t that Rabbi from Tarsus peg the “serailists” you mention in 2 Cor 11:14?
Successful Psychopaths, Sociopaths, and Predators are MASTERS of camouflage, otherwise they wouldn’t be successful.
They all did both. Both, and, but presenting as wonderful godly hardworking family men, pillars in the community.
Regarding 1 Cor. 11 – wow, what a chapter! Paul says there are some who entitle themselves as “superapostles” but in reality:
“For such people are false apostles, deceitful workers, who masquerade as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan* masquerades as an angel of light. So it is not strange that his ministers also masquerade as ministers of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds.”
Scary stuff and real.
We have same such “superapostles” dug in with the devil but running around in our churches today.
*It’s noteworthy that Satan loves to quote God, God’s Word, the Bible.
Oh yeah, you will find many servants of Satan teaching and preaching in churches all over America! Sly devils they are. We read about them daily on TWW.
With one major difference:
The BDSM scene proper understands the concept of “Consent”.