I suspect the boys protect their version of celebrity pastors at the top. All of them should hang their heads in shame. They are supposed to be shepherds, but, in this instance, it appears they are dancing with wolves.

No. They’re no dancing with wolves. They just standing back and allowing the wolves to have free, easy access to the sheep. What it really comes down to is they are feeding the wolves who dress as shepherds.

“Shake the dust” and “forgive”??? Is that what he would do if someone abused his daughter….. or stole his car and totaled it?….

The sexual molestation of minors is a FELONY in all 50 states.
What I wanna’ know, is how come the cops weren’t notified, and these grown men all escaped jail?

Muff Potter: how come the cops weren’t notified, and these grown men all escaped jail?

Heartbreakingly, it sounds as though Shamika was taught to normalize the abuse done to her as a child. She had a 37 year old “boyfriend” as a teenager. She didn’t know it was wrong for adults to treat her this way, because it was all she knew. Who would have reported what was happening, if the adults in her life dismissed her?

Holder abused her starting when she was 17 and continuing while she was legally an adult. The age of consent varies in some states. Depending on where this took place, it may not have been automatically illegal. Again, if she didn’t realize at the time it was wrong, who would have reported it?

I might as well say it again, kids are safer in a secular activity venue than they are in ‘church’.

Shamika, your story is heartbreaking. I imagine you are a great mom and very protective of your kids! “Shake off the dust”…. is he kidding with quoting that verse? Repentance is needed and pronto. Consequences need to be served. Is he still “counseling” young women all by himself? Someone brings this to you/your church and you are not alarmed by it and act on it immediately? Also, Commentator23 : that was heartbreaking and beautiful what you wrote.

Shamika, thank you for sharing your story. I’m so very sorry for all these things. You deserved so much better. i hope for some kind of justice, and peace, joy, and happiness for you (which i know don’t always come easy — nevertheless, it’s what I hope for you, & me, & all of us)

Sandy: I think what you and Commenter23 see is real. I see it too. I applaud the spirit inspires efforts of The Wartburg Watch.

At the same time something seems drastically wrong with the theology. Per Commenter23, Jesus wants to act—but can’t or won’t? I can’t find that idea anywhere in the Bible or any catechism.

I personally believe the corrective is obvious and simple. God / Jesus is not Omni. He is not all powerful or all knowing. The Omni attributes are the result of late Greek influences.

God needs our help.

May Gods love be with you.

Hi, Sandy.
I was also sexually abused as a child – by my parents, brother, grandparents, uncle, a pastor, strangers, babysitters, co-workers, etc. I was often put in the “care” of unsafe people because my parents are unsafe people themselves. I want you to know that I understand what you’re wrestling with in regards to God not stopping the abuse that happened to you, and I wanted to hopefully offer comfort by sharing what God has shown me as I’ve walked through the brutal healing process:

1. God is both sovereign and good, which is a battle to believe because of the evil that exists in the world.

2. God gave humanity free will because He made us in His image and in order to experience His love. But love is not love without choice; God couldn’t have robots as children, and gave us the ability to choose or reject Him.

3. When sin entered the world, humans became capable of choosing both evil and good. And even “good” people have committed evil in one way or another.

4. In order for God to intervene every time abuse happens, He would have to violate someone’s free will, which means that if even for one time, that person becomes a robot not a person. Also, that means each and every one of us would have had our free will violated at least once by God in order to keep us from doing evil, and God won’t do that because it is abusers who violate free will to the detriment of others.

5. God never leaves us alone – not during the abuse or after. He’s there witnessing and experiencing the abuse with us as our bodies are His temple (1 Cor. 3:16-17). We are His children – what we feel, He feels. And God sustains us through the abuse and through the healing process.

6. God records everything that happens. Every tear we cry and every evil committed against us. And even if our abusers don’t receive justice in this world (because the world is ruled by the devil), they will receive justice when they stand before God at the Judgment Seat. Abusers do not get away with anything, ever.

7. It’s okay to rage, scream, cry at God for the wrong that has been committed against you. His shoulders are big enough to carry all of our burdens and help us walk through all the valleys of death (Psalm 23). I often read Genesis, Job, Lamentations, and Ecclesiastes to remind myself that God is with me through everything and that even when I don’t understand, He is still good and will somehow work everything out for my good in the end, even when it’s an ugly process to get to the good.

8. God has used the abuse I’ve gone through to grow my compassion for survivors , wisdom/discernment to recognize the wolves, and resolve to fight the injustices in the world. I believe He does this for every survivor because only survivors can truly understand the darkness of evil and abuse and what it takes to come out on the other side. And I believe God uses our experiences to forge us into a weapon against evil just like He has used Dee and TWW.

9. I hold onto the promise that God WILL right every wrong in the end. And I remember that the greatest victory of all time looked like utter defeat – Jesus’ death on the cross looked like God had lost, but He actually decimated sin, death, and the grave.

10. The devil threw the best he had at you, but you’re still here. And because of what you’ve gone through, you are now dangerous to his kingdom of darkness because you know how to help free other prisoners from abuse.

I hope this helps, and I pray you find peace and comfort as you walk through this dark valley. Just know that you do not walk alone.

dee: Question: Why do I still believe, seeing what I see and write about daily? Why does Shamika? Are we merely brainwashed, or is it possible that we see something that some might not see?

The story of Job in the Bible speaks to this, as well as the passion of Christ, and the martyrdom of saints.

Our Jewish friends recognize well the hostility of the Prince of this world, his followers and the evil they do.

Daily, I pray that all who suffer will seek God and that God will answer. Intercession of prayer is an essential part of our ministry, so that like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the furnace, or like Daniel in the lion’s den, those who suffer will have fellowship with God even in their suffering and then find His path to Eternity with Him.

The Holocaust survivors are a living testimony to when a country of people, including church people, voted in an authoritarian leader who cut short the lives of millions with global suffering.

All who suffer bear testimony. Are the rest of us listening? That, too, is an essential question.

We can ask, “How long, O Lord,” like the Psalmist in #13, “are we to suffer?”

We can also ask, “How long do witnesses of evil in our churches, like Cindy Clemishire, have to keep telling their story until someone actually believes them and takes action?” How many years, decades, centuries? How long, church people?

elastigirl: cheers to whistleblowers.

Jesus was a whistleblower.
So was Daniel.
And Moses.
And Paul.

MLK was a whistleblower.

In Elie Wiesel’s memoir “Night”, the town beadle or synagogue assistant, was arrested, shipped to a camp, escaped back home to town, then warned everyone about the Holocaust. Did they listen and leave? No.

How many victims of clergy sexual abuse warn the church about the church predators? For how long? Who listens, believes and acts?

God bless whistleblowers.

Thanks for taking time to ponder my concerns.

Here are my further replies.

Again, I am deeply grateful for the work being done here and the love expressed. Thank you. I do indeed find many of my prayers answered here.

I am not trying to convert anyone to my opinions. But it all, you know, hits a nerve.

Regarding free will.
It seems to me that God “violates our free will” all the time and we do not become robots. The OT is about Gods imposition of his might in an ongoing act of creation. God has given me some doozies over the year that have shaped my life in remarkable and unexpected ways. I still have much free will and yes I am still like a robot in many ways. Humans are always a mix of robotic and free. If God answers my prayer for strength to become less robotic, how does that make me a robot?

A friend of mine has made a major part of her life’s testimony that “Jesus answered my prayers and sent me my husband.” Other friends eagerly testify that God has done unexpected miracles in their lives. So which is it—free will or copious interventions? (My friend is relatively wealthy, smart, and attractive and was ”sent” a mate with these qualities. The supernatural hypothesis is not necessary here.)

Back to my fellow altar boys.
To be clear, I was never abused, but many were.
I have heard many stories. Oddly perhaps, these stories rarely include answered prayers, except perhaps in this arguably more secular sense of a lifetime of redemptive suffering. Many left the faith and at least a few died of drugs or suicide. These are thought to be “mortal sins” in the Catholic Church. Here’s where I get truly angry—and I’ll just leave it at that.

Regarding free will x altar boys.
I believe it is true that all of the boys prayed intensely for the abuse to stop. I think many of the priests did too.

A boys prayer might include the request to “give me a loud voice and a strong hand to say NO.” That would seem to be the opposite of violating the free will of the boy. Yet I can find no instance of a boy being amplified in his will and knocking the priest—the avatar of Jesus—onto his backside.

May Gods love be with you!

Sandy,

“Humans are always a mix of robotic and free.”
++++++++++++++++

we are very easily swayed.

i was born christian and grew up christian.

when i was caught up in the heady church environment, one Sunday during the sermon I caught myself nodding my head in demonstrative agreement. then a split second later I realized i didn’t even know what was just said. i wasn’t even really paying attention.

that was just one of the wake-up calls for me.

now i’m Kilimanjaro.

elastigirl: i don’t why sh|t happens, but it does.

The Rabbi from Nazareth said pretty much the same about the Siloam Tower Collapse.

N: The pain is horrid, but His grace is enough day by day.

Thank you.

Your witness is shocking, revealing, and hopeful.
I wish you peace and healing and joy!

We must all go on, eyes forward and upward.

Yet still—I grieve for my peers who seem (many of them) utterly destroyed by their experiences and never recovered, their prayers eventually fading. Abuse by the avatars of God in the shadow of the altar, incense still in the air, is almost more than my poor soul can contemplate.

Sandy,

It’s so terrible.

Denhollander was a preschooler when a kindly-seeming old man at her church held her in his lap and molested her, and then the church people rejected her family when they reported. And then when she was a high level gymnast, it happened again. And even after Nassar the abuser confessed, Denhollander was still getting messages from people who blamed and rejected her.

One thing that comes to mind is the friends who lowered their paralytic friend in the roof, to get him near Jesus to receive recovery. Your peers have you to lament for them and intercede for them, and to ask the rest of us to do the same. And that is hopeful, IMHO.

Also what comes to mind is that the thief has to restore many times over what was stolen. I think in Proverbs? So Denhollander and others were allowed by God to be in terrible situations where things were stolen from them, by terrible charlatans, right in the church, by people who claimed to be people of God. And ultimately it’s my understanding from Lamentations and other passages, that none of us deserves better, that we all deserve hell.

So we receive a taste of what we deserve… but then we have the opportunity to turn to Jesus, and receive His comfort, and then use the authority over the enemy that He gives to us. In the passage where He said, I give you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions, and nothing shall by any means harm you.

So Denhollander had the opportunity to stand up to the evil by reporting Nassar to journalists and ultimately in court, and shine a very large light on how abuse has not been adequately handled.

And that has opened up a way for many more children to be protected, and survivors to be vindicated. So the joy that was stolen from Denhollander as a child, cannot be kept from flooding forward now in grace from Jesus, as she sees people receiving hope and healing and freedom, and she gets to be part of it.

May all survivors start to receive healing, and the joy of their place in the battle, and in the family that endures the fire together.

Judges 4-5,

Thank you Judges 4-5 for your insightful words. Only someone who has gone through abuse and was able to still walk with the Lord and let Him heal them. I’m sure you are being used for His Glory!

N: So Denhollander and others were allowed by God to be in terrible situations where things were stolen from them, by terrible charlatans, right in the church, by people who claimed to be people of God. And ultimately it’s my understanding from Lamentations and other passages, that none of us deserves better, that we all deserve hell.

“Then why don’t we all just hold hands and walk into a chopper blade?”
— Hawkeye Pierce, 4077th MASH

Ava Aaronson: In Elie Wiesel’s memoir “Night”, the town beadle or synagogue assistant, was arrested, shipped to a camp, escaped back home to town, then warned everyone about the Holocaust. Did they listen and leave? No.

And the entire town ended up in the ash dumps of Auschwitz and Treblinka.