“We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

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Warning: There will be some graphic descriptions of abuse in this post.

Also, update on 11/13/24 on Kerri’s story. Some minor corrections were made.

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This is a story that must be told. These brave women and their friends have suffered for decades due to the response of people within the church and community where these events took place. I also believe the women should file a police report, and I will assist them. How naive and cruel the church was in the 1980s and 1990s. Most cases of sexual abuse in the church were covered up, supposedly to “protect the church.” Even today, Pastor John MacArthur, responding to the scandal of Steve Lawson, as quoted on The Roys Report:

On Oct. 20, John MacArthur discussed the Lawson scandal in a Q & A session at GCC. The 85-year-old pastor said he believed God was purifying His church by exposing Lawson but did not mention the TMUS graduate Lawson was involved with.

He also called on GCC (ed. note  Grace Community Church) to band together in the crisis.

“We’ve got to circle the wagons . . .” MacArthur said. “Because when we’re exposed like that, all the enemies are going to come at us with a vengeance. And if they can pit us against each other, they can do some real damage.”

It is time to change that paradigm. The church must support the victims who, in this case, are victims of Pastor Joe Campbell. I have some ideas on this count that I will specifically discuss in coming posts.

Faith continues for these former members of the Eastland Assembly of God.

Most of these victims have stated that they still have faith in Jesus. They are deeply disappointed by the people in the church. I understand since this has been my own emotional and spiritual experience.

Understanding pedophilia (and all paraphilias): Most reoffend…

I am shocked that anyone in the church would blow off pedophilia as just another sin. It is a profound psychiatric disorder that rarely, if ever, is fully resolved. God may forgive a genuinely repentant pedophile, but that pedophile will deal with their disorder for the rest of their life. Sadly, most pedophiles will reoffend. The church must wake up and realize that pedophiles will target their churches. There are children present. Members are told to obey their pastors. And the truly gifted pedophile will be a beloved pastor and apt teacher.

It is not normal for an adult man to pursue sexual relationships and sexual innuendoes with children and teens. Pedophilia (the sexual interest in children) is just one of a group of paraphilias. For example, some pedophiles go after prepubescent children, while others target 14-year-old boys, like my former SBC church. The National Institutes of Health has done work in this area. Here is something I wrote recently featuring their work.

Here is something I wrote about 3 people in the news with probable paraphilias.

What is a paraphilia? Isn’t it just another sin?

I have used this blog to expose pedophiles in the broader Protestant church. However, my goal in writing has little to do with exposing “one more pedophile.” There always seems to be more than one more pedophile. I have hoped that the reader will understand the complicated topic of paraphilias. Comprehending the difficulties inherent in such behavior is essential to protecting you and your family.

Here is a link at the National Institutes of Health: Paraphilia by Kristy A. Fisher and Raman Marwaha that explains this.

Paraphilias are persistent and recurrent sexual interests, urges, fantasies, or behaviors of marked intensity involving objects, activities, or even situations that are atypical in nature. Although not innately pathological, a paraphilic disorder can evolve if paraphilia invokes harm, distress, or functional impairment on the lives of the affected individual or others.

…The DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for paraphilia states explicitly that the patient must have experienced intense and recurrent sexual arousal from deviant fantasies for at least six months and must have acted on these impulses. A paraphilia becomes a pathology, or a paraphilic disorder, only when this behavior causes significant distress and impairment of functioning to the individual or if the paraphilia involves personal harm or risk of harm to others

…However, due to the patient’s reluctance to seek treatment or the legal obligation to obtain treatment, psychiatrists are often forced to exceed the call of duty to the patient to reduce distress but rather focus efforts on protection against potential victimization.

Those with paraphilia are often reluctant to seek treatment. Even when they do, the counselor must focus on preventing harm to another victim.

Read the section called Prognosis. It appears that those with paraphilias are likely to reoffend.

Despite the psychological and pharmacological interventions designed to manage paraphilias and paraphilic disorders; an ultimate treatment or change has yet to be established. Existing interventions merely allow for increased voluntary control through self-management skills over sexual arousal and reduction in sexual drive, with the best-yielded prognosis only from those individuals who are actually motivated to change.[2] Those who do participate in either therapy alone or, ideally, the combined management of psychological and medicinal intervention show improvement with a marked reduction in the intensity and frequency of deviant sexual arousal and resultant behaviors.[18] However, the literature suggests that most sexual offenders are likely to re-offend.[2]

Sexual harm to kids is seen in many forms, as these three women will recount. I believe their stories.

Sarah’s story: Exposure to pornography via the Campbells at a young age has led to lifelong difficulties.

Sarah’s exposure to pornography was known to others. It is alleged (and I believe them) that Becky Campbell would put on pornographic videos during church lock-ins and trips. Kim (whose story follows) will verify that her brother would often view pornography at various events.

Sarah was never physically abused by Joe Campbell but experienced emotional trauma directly caused by viewing such explicit and “violent” images at a young age. Sarah attended a lock-in at Joe’s home. Sarah had been slow to talk as a young child and still found communicating challenging. When she was 8 years old, she saw what she described as violent pornography, which depicted a woman being held down as men harmed her.

She told me she “told Joe that there was bad stuff on TV,” but Joe ignored her. She said she didn’t have the vocabulary to say what she saw. This behavior continued until Joe left the church. She states that Becky often was the one to put the porn onto the TV.

Joe often discussed demons and demon possession. He would say how he had gotten rid of a demon in some kids. Sarah believes that this was done to terrorize the children. If so, it was effective. She said she learned to keep these secrets, but it came with a cost. She didn’t speak out in school until she was 12 years old. She thought she would be in trouble if she said anything. She said she was spanked if she cried, so she plastered a smile on her face to hide what was inside. She wouldn’t sleep with the lights out throughout her growing-up years.

Joe came back to attend the graduation of some former students. He quietly approached her and said, “You have the body of a beautiful woman.” He asked if she could visit him in Missouri, where he was pastoring at the Versailles Assembly of God church, but she had an out. She had joined the cheerleading team, and there was mandatory summer practice.

She eventually told her parents when she was 18. They said she shouldn’t worry about it because she wasn’t molested. She has spent lots of money in counseling, which she says is due to the horror of being exposed to violent pornography at a young age.

I think what she told me next was crucial.

“We were told to never say “No” to adults ” and to do what they told her to do. She was so scared by what she saw that he didn’t say anything to her parents. So, she continued to go on church trips and attend lockins

Kim’s story: Joe arranged for her to come from Eastland AO in Oklahoma to his new church in Versailles AG in Missouri. I wonder if that is bringing her over state lines.

Kim grew up in the Eastland AOG. Her brother would attend the lock-ins and told her that he would see pornography at those events. She also said that Becky was the one who put pornography on the TV. Joe would say, “Who did this?” apparently pretending he didn’t know.

Kim often helped in the puppet ministry that Joe started. After he moved to his new church in Versailles, he called and asked if she could come to Versailles to help with Vacation Bible School. She had a very good relationship with her parents, who let her go. She said that Joe began grooming her on the car ride. He had her sit in the front seat. He mentioned a special needs girl to her and said, “I wonder if she has had sex.” He also wondered if she was “clean down there.” Kim found that gross.

These talks continued in his office. Once, the door was closed, and the church secretary banged it open and looked in. Kim wondered if she knew what Joe did when the door was closed. When Kim was shooting hoops in the gym, wearing her jams,” another member of the church threw her over his shoulder, and Joe spanked her hard on her butt.

The following incident caused Kim to call her parents to get her out of there. She was sitting on a couch, about to eat a peppermint candy in her hand. Joe came over to the sofa and started playing with her hair. He then began to rub up and down her thighs. Then he put his hands under her bra and then under her panties. As she was shaking, he digitally penetrated her. She was still clutching her candy. She jumped up, called her parents, and said she wanted to come home. She said that at the moment, she was “totally losing it.”

Joe spoke to her parents and told them she was “homesick.” When he brought her to the car, he chided her for “causing trouble.” He claimed they had been her “hosts,” and now he needed to spend money to fly her home. He appeared very angry with her.

Here are some points she made.

• By this time, Joe had been told to leave Eastland. I will explain that in a future post. She wondered why no one had told her not to go to Versailles.
• She said, “He’s a professional” regarding grooming.
• She said he also spoke to the parents during VBS  on the subject of the prevalence of sexual abuse.” He sounded so concerned, and the people present were moved. She said it was a powerful sermon. Was this a way to conceal his activities?

Kerri’s story: Joe sexually penetrated her. She cried, “It hurt. You’re too big.”

In the summer between 4^th and 5^th grade, Joe talked to Kerri in the car on the way to a church campground. His questions made her feel uncomfortable because they were “embarrassing.” They were questions she was never asked before and hardly understand, later understanding that Joe was “grooming her”. Soon after, he made his first physical move. Kerri was at the church helping to prepare for an event. Joe asked her to go with him to his house to get something. When they got there, he tried to touch her intimately. She ran into the hall closet, and he came in after her. He said he had kissed other girls in church to make her feel more at ease. This became a regular occurrence with Kerri. Joe molested her at the church, in the car, and at his home. This went on for approximately 3 years.

His molestation included exploring with his tongue and fingers and, finally, full penetration. The rape occurred during a lock-in at his home in his garage. While other girls were locked outside of the garage, they were under the impression that Joe and Kerri were working on a haunted house.

Kerri described that she kept saying,

“You’re too big, it hurts so bad, I’m too small.”

He responded by passing her a washcloth and sending her to the bathroom. He told her to clean herself off and said, “There was stuff there that shouldn’t be there.”

The head pastor, JW Ellsworth, apparently told Joe to leave the church years earlier, knowing of his previous reported transgressions. Inexplicably, within a couple of years, he brought Joe back to the church to begin the cycle again. Kerri was a part of the 2^nd round. When she tried to report it to the youth minister, Bill Snyder, he made her feel like she was not telling the truth and shamed her. After Ellsworth and Snyder left the church. Kerri’s friend DeWana exposed the story, and Pastor Dave Torgerson and Larry Kloefkorn believed her story.

Kerri’s awful trial by the AG: What did his penis look like?

(I misspelled Kerri’s name in my first post as Carrie. I have corrected this.)

Kerri went to the AOG in Springfield to testify about what happened. Approximately 30 men were sitting around a U-shaped table. Joe and Becky Campbell, along with Becky’s father, were present. The AOG ministers from the district that were at the table questioning Kerri basically called her a liar because she was unable to describe his penis or his naked body.

I will be communicating with the AOG once I write the final story. This experience, along with others in the church community who blamed her for hurting Joe, caused her to contemplate suicide at the age of 16 and again in her 30s.

Finally

I have presented three more stories of sexual abuse by Joe and Becky Campbell. It is disturbing that he is not only a pastor, but I am told he runs a camp to help women and children. Oddly, the Facebook page is not available at the moment. I will be looking into this.

I will write one more post on Joe Campbell’s abuse victims. I will contact all the involved churches, the AOG mothership, Jim Bakker ministries, and Joe Campbell. I will take you along as I make calls and keep you posted as we explore what is happening. I hope to help the women make police reports and push to see if anything can be done. As you may know, Robert Morris is now being criminally investigated. Perhaps some of the same rules will apply to the women in Oklahoma.

There is much to be done in this instance. Please keep the women in your prayers. I believe there may be many more victims out there.