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“Those who grant sympathy to guilt, grant none to innocence.” ― Ayn Rand

In the next few months, some things may occur that will probably bring this blog to the attention of a wider audience. It came to me. It was not something I pursued. I believe good will come out of this for some victims. The Lord willing and the creek don’t rise, this blog will continue as it is now. I have no plans to change things because I like the community that visits here. Y’all keep me grounded. Think of it this way. More folks may be reading your comments soon.

Amy Smith at Watchkeep wrote Dallas pastor Chuck Adair is a lifetime registered child sex offender featured on America’s Most Wanted. I wrote about this last Friday. So, an “America’s Most Wanted” Child Molester Is Now “Over It” and Watermark Church Has Him on Staff. Did the Church Alert Their Insurance Carrier? Amy received the following mail from an apparent co-worker of Adair in ‘Regeneration (sic).’ Amy has permitted me to post it.

What is Regeneration, and what are its promises? This is a significant problem.

(ed. note: As readers may realize, any program has some serious flaws that promise a cure for issues such as same-sex attraction and eating disorders. This is not the focus of this post, but I plan to deal with it separately. I have it in a draft post.)

I was taken aback when I read the following on Watermark’s website. According to Watermark:

Re:generation

12-STEP CHRIST-CENTERED RECOVERY

Find freedom from all struggles, including: anxiety/depression, pornography, fear, control, substance abuse, codependency, sexual abuse, same-sex attraction, eating disorders/body image, anger, obsessive thoughts, and any other struggle that has you stuck.

Chuck Adair

Amy

Where I can appreciate your sincerity in keeping the public informed, l’d like to think that your blogs are meant to be informative and warning vessel for the public.

I serve in Regeneration with Chuck Adair and want to make it clear to you that you reopened old news with nothing new to inform anyone. There were some errors in your blog and the reason I contact you is your blog managed to do more than your desired information spill on Mr. Adair.

You managed to open old harms and hurt people. We all have heard his story, we all have heard his repentant heart and asking for forgiveness. Chuck is involved with doing God’s work here.

You have taken an angle that hurts those around Chuck that know his repentant heart.

A group of twenty plus volunteer leaders gathered last night to pray for Chuck, our ministry of Regen and for you.

I don’t condone past actions but I am a sinner as well and I trust in God’s grace and mercy to forgive me everyday.

l ask you to reflect on the possibility that Chuck is redeemed and no longer defined by his past as you are and as I am if you believe in Jesus as your Savior. Reflect that your story actually hurt Chuck and many of us as well. God alone is responsible for judgement not you or me.

Chuck spent 10 years in prison for his crime and is listed as a registered sex offender for life. That is man’s judgement for him. And yes, that story is used to help others.

I know Chuck as a person who disciples well and is loved by many.

None of us forget the past however our past can serve as a story of God’s true grace held for all men and women.

This is just my private message to you and where I feel you meant to inform people, you managed to inflict pain where it does not belong.

I know that many people wasted time making statements including the elders at my church, Regen leadership and friends of the Adairs.

That could have been avoided with some discretionary thought by you before blogging the old story.

I pray you take this message to heart. And continue your efforts in a more responsible way.

I speak for no one but myself Amy and thank you for taking time to read this message.

Regards,

JF  (name deleted to protect this guy from blowback)

The Jesus movement of the 60s and 70s reflects the naivete of JF and Watermark.

I get JF. The outgrowth of the Jesus movement was positive because it pointed people to Jesus. Where it messed up was the belief that lots of prayer would free people from all sorts of sins, such as alcoholism, drug addiction, sexual addiction, etc. As the movement grew up, its naivete became evident. Jesus saves but does not promise freedom from many issues we know are difficult to overcome.

As time progressed, the promises of the Jesus movement were not realized. One only needs to read the stories of Lonnie Frisbee.

My point is this. Adair does not appear to have a simple sin here. He has a desire for young teens, which is abnormal and is evidence of a deep-seated psychiatric problem,

Chuck Adair appears to have a serious psychiatric problem.

I wonder if JF has studied the problems associated with paraphilias. Does he understand that it is abnormal for a man to want to have sex with a young teen? An adult male would normally seek to have sex with a consenting person. The girl he kidnapped could not consent to having sex with him. His urge to do so was so strong he had to kidnap her. These are not the actions of a typical male. He likely has paraphilia, which is like pedophilia, except it is directed toward young teens.

I am sorry I have to reprint this, but I do so in case JF or one of his untrained “re: generate” friends are reading. I beg you to do your research on paraphilias. Adair could possibly reoffend. Read the following. If he is being honest, he will confess this. He is willing to go to dangerous lengths to fulfill his sexual compulsions. This is not a simple “one and done.”

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]

Takeaway point: Literature suggests that most sexual offenders will reoffend.

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Back to the letter, which is written by a believer who appears to be ill-educated in both the faith and dealing with paraphilias.

“You managed to open old harms and hurt people. We all have heard his story, we all have heard his repentant heart and asking for forgiveness. Chuck is involved with doing God’s work here.” You have taken an angle that hurts those around Chuck that know his repentant heart.

JF has not heard his whole heart. He has heard what Adair has allowed him to hear. He has been around the church and knows the lingo. Be careful. Only God knows his heart. Also, just because he is helping out around the church does not mean he is “free” from his concerning psychiatric problem.

If Chuck were truly healed from his past, he would be open to having his past revealed in a public way. One pastor I know had a pedophile who wanted to come to church. He said that he would allow it with constant escorts. Then, he told him that he would post his picture throughout the church so that those attending would know who he was. They could then help keep him “honest.” This pastor knew if the pedophile balked, he had not accepted his past and wished to keep it hidden. As for the rest of Regen’s volunteers being hurt, why? Do the questions make them feel uncomfortable? If so, why? Are they so insecure that outsider questions make you feel bad? Maybe insecurity can be 100% cured by your program. You know, freedom from insecurity.

Remember, JF, you only know of his stated repentance. You do not know his heart, just like you know that others do not know your whole heart.

How did he ask for forgiveness? I hope it was from God because you cannot grant him forgiveness. Only his victims can do that.

A group of twenty-plus volunteer leaders gathered last night to pray for Chuck, our ministry of Regen, and for you.

Why did you feel a need to say this? If you believe in prayer, you would do so quietly and trust God to act. Why did you need to tell Amy you needed to pray for her? This reminds me of a phrase we use in the South: “Let’s pray for her, bless her heart.” It would also behoove you to stop using insider language like “regen.” We know you are cool and consider yourself an insider and a “volunteer leader.”

I don’t condone past actions but I am a sinner as well and I trust in God’s grace and mercy to forgive me everyday.

Here is the crux of your argument, and it fails. We are all sinners, but not all sins are the same. Here is an easy example. Some guy cuts you off and gives you the finger, and you think ugly thoughts about him. So you ask for forgiveness. Your sin only affected you. Now let’s talk about “Chuck,” as you call him. He sexually molested an underage girl and kidnapped her. Her family was scared. The girl is forever changed, something that I write about. The police needed to track him down. His sin affected far more people. Besides, it was not merely a sin. It was also a crime.

God forgives all of us if we confess our sins and repent. That does not mean a person has a “get out of jail free” card. There are consequences. Some of those consequences may be not serving as a pastor any longer. Did you know that a licensed counselor who has sex with a client can lose his license and even serve jail time? That means they cannot be counselors any longer. Yet, it appears that Chuck, who was a pastor when he abducted the kid, is still a pastor. My husband is a cardiologist at a major medical institution. If he had sex with a patient, let alone kidnap the patient, he would lose his license, go to prison, and get sued. He often says, “I can’t stand it when the church has lower standards than the secular world.”

l ask you to reflect on the possibility that Chuck is redeemed and no longer defined by his past.

‘He might be redeemed. That is not the argument. However, like it or not, Chuck will always be socially defined by his past when it comes to his unusual predilection for sex with a minor. He should not be a pastor. He gave up his pastor’s card the day he had sex with a kid in his youth program. He can live a decent life. He can get a job at Home Depot and faithfully serve in that capacity. He can volunteer at a substance abuse halfway house or even work with those convicted of sex abuse. If he is repentant, then God will forgive him. If he balks at this, why? Why does he need to have a job as a pastor in a church? Is it because people trust him?

God alone is responsible for judgement not you or me.

God is responsible for whether or not one is saved. He alone gets to say if one’s name is in the Book of Life. But JF, we ARE responsible to judge. Why does God give us a list of things we should and should not do? Look at the 10 Commandments. If someone commits adultery in the church, they will be disciplined. We must judge actions, or there will be anarchy. You tell your kid to stop hitting their sibling. Isn’t that judging an action? Chuck’s actions are out there to be judged. He needs to pull on his big boy pants and stop this nonsense of “being hurt” when someone critiques his previous actions. If he is still “being hurt,” something tells me he has yet to accept full responsibility for what he did.

you managed to inflict pain where it does not belong.

I don’t understand your program at the church. Most counselors (Christians included) would say that the individual has not accepted his past if he still experiences pain if his past is exposed. He should be at the point of saying, “Yep, that’s me.” You see, his victim and his victim’s parents still experience pain as they remember his despicable actions, which changed their lives. Why does Chuck think he is supposed to be pain-free?

That could have been avoided with some discretionary thought
And continue your efforts in a more responsible way.

Exposing predators (past or present) in our midst can be a Godly pursuit. Anyone considering attending your church should be offered the right to be told about such a person at the church. If Chuck is really free, he should be free to let people know about his past if they come across him at the church.

JF, I think you need to continue your efforts more responsibly. Take the time to research the long-term problems of paraphilias. You may be a “volunteer leader,” but you could learn to communicate more effectively.

PS: Next time, remember to mention the victim and her family. Those people should be hurt, not your “Regen” friends or Chuck.