Genuine repentance will “produce fruit consistent with repentance” (Matthew 3:8).

What would the fruit of repentance look like for a pedophile who genuinely repents?

I think Dee has answered that question in the section of her post “the steps that Joe and Becky Campbell must take if they have truly repented.”

Without an obvious “fruit of repentance”, it would be unrepentant repentance, counterfeit not genuine.

You hit it on the head once again! So right in everything you said.

Lies, coverups, no accountability…when does it end? Dee, our very own LCMS may very well be involved in a coverup of its own. I am truly disheartened.

https://open.substack.com/pub/irislennox?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=5gqrf7

dee: NBC is continuing to pursue this story and is aware of the AOG’s actions

The AOG interrogation unit should have handed Joe Campbell over to local authorities, rather than slapping him on the hand … his sins were crimes. AOG executives who thought putting a child under a spotlight in a room full of dudebros was a good idea should be removed from leadership. Yep, there’s a lot sick and wrong with the Joe Campbell story.

Ava Aaronson: Then Zacchaeus actually does exactly this – he brings forth the fruits of repentance

By ACTION. Not Long Pious Prayers.

Max,

Yup…

My thoughts on repentance are little more Wesleyan leaning.

The first step is realizing admitting to yourself, then to God, that you are a sinner AND have committed sinful acts. (Those are seen as two separate things. We ARE sinners and we DO sins.) But until you can see your wrongdoing as wrongdoing, you will explain it, justify it, deny it, and keep right on doing it.

2. The second step is to take it God for forgiveness. This is pretty straight forward. You know what you did was wrong, you take it to God and ask for His forgiveness.

3. The next step is usually a longer one–you try to amend your ways and fail, or you try to convince everyone that since God has forgiven you they must also, or you even believe and defend the idea you can be forgiven and go right on sinning without it damaging your relationship with God.

4. Now comes the zinger–your consequences are catching up to you enough to make you want to quit the sinning, or you just flat out miss the wonderful presence of Jesus, or somehow just finally realize that on you own there is just no hope you can really turn the ship around. You flee to Jesus confessing all this.

5. Jesus changes your heart. Once you reach the end of your rope, are willing to totally forsake and abandon your sin, stop making excuses for it, and yet realize you are helpless to change and trust Him to make that change, He cleanses your heart so you really can choose the right. For some it is apparently instantaneous, for others takes a lifetime, and Wesleyans don’t always agree on the timing. But there is hope of real, total, lasting conversion of heart.

To a Wesleyan two issues are at play: sin, and sins. Sin the condition of the heart, and sins are the acts. We need forgiveness for the acts, and cleansing to remove the desire for those sins from the heart. People may still choose to sin, or get tripped up in it, even return to having an evil heart, but while there is breath there is hope for a total cleansing.

So I would say there are two false repentances: one is thinking of it as a get out jail free card, eliminating the consequences of our sins while refusing the heart cleansing. The other is thinking we can clean up our act and move on without the heart cleansing.

Both only attempt to deal with sins, and neither deals with the root cause of sin.

Your mileage may vary.

Christie24: And not fake crying or speaking with voice breaking about how incredibly hard this has all been (for them). Or making the consequences of their sin all about them, so that only the most hard-hearted person could possibly question whether the offender has actually changed.

According to Martha Stout, in her The Sociopath Next Door, manipulation of sympathy is a reliable indicator of sociopathy. We should all be alert for this in our dealings with others.

Christie24: And not fake crying or speaking with voice breaking about how incredibly hard this has all been (for them).

Actors on a stage. Crying without tears is a gimmick commonly used by “repentant pastors”. And the “church” falls for it everytime!

These first two sentences set me off: My friend, Dewana, has been listening to the sermons at Jim Bakker’s Morningside Ministries. She says that it seems they are spending a great deal of time encouraging people to forgive their pastors.

My instant reaction? Ha, if I had sexually abused minors under my care when I was teaching school, SS classes, or VBS classes, ….. or if I had drugged and sexually abused an adult church member (maybe a pastor, or an elder) …. how quickly would Jim Bakker and his pastor-partners in crime forgiven me???
Do they encourage people to forgive all criminals, or just themselves their buddies?

I think all of y’all know the answers to those questions.

Burwell Stark: I would recommend that the victims and their families work towards forgiveness

Should you forgive someone who has not repented, who has not openly confessed their sin, who continued in “ministry” to commit the same sin/crime against others, who is now literally hiding from victims? IMO, true forgiveness flows best when true repentance is vocalized and expressed, when a change of the inner man is obvious. The victims, church, and media/blogosphere are waiting for that from Mr. Campbell.

Max: you sin

“your sin”

Max,

Hi Max. I had typed a response but could not get the wording just the way I wanted it. Then along came Samuel Conner, whose description of “attitudinal” and “transactional” forgiveness is what I was trying to say (THANK YOU, SC). Yes, I mean that attitudinal forgiveness should be extended in this situation, but only God knows if transactional forgiveness is possible this side of eternity.

Burwell Stark: attitudinal forgiveness should be extended in this situation, but only God knows if transactional forgiveness is possible this side of eternity

I suppose a victim can have an attitude to extend forgiveness to an abuser … but not release forgiveness until the abuser genuinely repents and asks for forgiveness from the victim. Discerning genuine vs. counterfeit repentance is the challenge. IMO, the institutional church is full of unrepenting repenters in both pulpit and pew … indeed, unbelieving believers and unrepenting repenters may very well represent the majority of churchgoers.

Dee i am so impressed with your composure and general attitude shown on the NBC clip. You have a passion for this work but what shows is that you do it out of love, not anger. I also got a kick out of seeing the pugs!!!!

Muff Potter,

Yet, Christ specifically says go in your closet to pray so others DO NOT see you praying… I guess they did not read those words of Christ??

dee:
Sunlight Disinfectant,

I am trying to get the background on this. I started reading on the website and got a bit confused. Is there a link to the basic story to help me understand?

Not sure if you are on Facebook, Dee, but Iris Lennox is and replied right away when I contacted her through Messenger. She also has a Reddit profile, aside from her Substack.

https://www.reddit.com/u/LegOld6895/s/x1miZOel9p

If I can be of further help, Dee, please email me. Thanks.

Christie24: And not fake crying or speaking with voice breaking about how incredibly hard this has all been (for them).

Makes me think of the SS-Lagerfuehrer in Schindler’s List, practicing sincerity in front of the mirror.

Samuel Conner: According to Martha Stout, in her The Sociopath Next Door, manipulation of sympathy is a reliable indicator of sociopathy.

And the most reliable indicator is the ability to DARVO and become the Poor Poor Innocent REAL Victim like they’ve got D&D Mass Charm Person as a use-at-will spell-like ability.

Headless Unicorn Guy,

Alertness to the deployment of DARVO is indeed useful, and I am deeply grateful to Dee and TWW for calling my attention to this.

Two people I had already concluded (from criteria in Martha Stout’s The Sociopath Next Door) probably had sociopathic personalities did deploy DARVO, so stereotypically — like reading a script — that it was almost laughable.

Stout recommends, if at all possible, avoiding the sociopaths you know. They aren’t going to change (I speculate that this is a real-life example of what Reformed call “reprobation”), and dealing with them will not be beneficial to you.

Samuel Conner:
Burwell Stark,

FWIW, I have heard a distinction made between “attitudinal forgiveness” and “transacted forgiveness”. The former is something that the offended party can do on their own without dealing with the offender and does not imply reconciliation with or re-trust toward the offender; I think that this can be beneficial to the offended party for the reasons you mention. The latter is not real without repentance on the part of the offender (of course, one can go through the motions of transacting forgiveness toward an “at heart unrepentant” offender, but IMO that’s a recipe for ongoing abuse.)

When I was groomed and sexually violated for several months a decade ago by a male congregant at my church, it took a while before I got the courage to tell our pastor. Once I did, and once the guy was gone from our church, Pastor was immediately telling me I had to forgive my abuser. He was practically begging me to do it. I could barely tell up from down at that point. My feeling was that my trauma and well-being was basically irrelevant, but this guy getting forgiveness was everything.

Forgiveness can’t be forced. It has to happen in its own time, if it happens at all. Religious leaders and clergy, especially on the so-called conservative side, just have no idea how trauma works. They are clueless.

Sunlight Disinfectant,

“Pastor was immediately telling me I had to forgive my abuser. He was practically begging me to do it. I could barely tell up from down at that point. My feeling was that my trauma and well-being was basically irrelevant, but this guy getting forgiveness was everything.”
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

i reckon it was how he being biblical, in “keeping watch over your soul, as those who will have to give an account.” (Hebrews 13:17)

which was really all about him. so he could get God points.

what a ridiculous state of affairs this religion has become.

Casey G: AoG … stated that they reported him to authorities …

In my humble opinion, they had sufficient allegation of child sexual abuse that they should have escorted him to local authorities after they stripped him of his AoG credentials.

Sunlight Disinfectant: the Church seems to dismiss trauma

What we call “church” in many places is not really ‘the’ Church. The Body of Christ would never dismiss trauma, never ignore those who are hurting, never turn an ear from the cries of the abused, never cover and protect those who abuse. Unfortunately, finding the ‘real’ Church in America is like looking for a rare species, a needle in a haystack, a treasure buried in a field.

Sunlight Disinfectant: Thank you, Max. Dee is right when she says that we NEVER “get over it”. We learn to live with it and do what we can to survive. Everyone’s story is different.

And like brain damage from huffing Galaxy Gas (N2O), some of the damage will be permanent.