Golden State Bible College President on administrative leave over allegations of 'inappropriate conduct'

[Joeb]

So WALLY why don’t you condemn the Puirty/Patriarch Movement now. Publicly. I do.

Perhaps someone can define what is meant by the “purity/patriarch movement.” Who are the leading proponents? Is this Gothardism?

Neither idea in itself is necessarily the cause of sexual abuse. But, that is what the #MeToo movement wants us to believe. “Toxic masculinity” is to blame, so we’re told. So, Joeb, please define what you mean by these terms.

What is to be gained, again, is that when the outcry in public gets too loud, ruling boards of organizations like SWBTS are finally shamed into taking action. Almost all organizations have unwritten rules that members must abide by to remain a member of the group, and that’s a big reason why 1 Timothy 3:7 states that an elder must have a good reputation with outsiders. It is absolutely critical for organizations to listen to what outsiders see about them that they’re often not willing to admit to themselves.

[T Howard]

Joeb wrote:

So WALLY why don’t you condemn the Puirty/Patriarch Movement now. Publicly. I do

Perhaps someone can define what is meant by the “purity/patriarch movement.” Who are the leading proponents? Is this Gothardism?

Neither idea in itself is necessarily the cause of sexual abuse. But, that is what the #MeToo movement wants us to believe. “Toxic masculinity” is to blame, so we’re told. So, Joeb, please define what you mean by these terms.

It does have links to Gothard, but also to guys like Josh Harris of “I kissed dating goodbye.” It’s not really one movement, IMO.

Where I’d suggest many (not all) in that movement go wrong, and for that matter where a lot of us go wrong, is when things are said like “be careful that you don’t lead someone astray by how you dress.” Notice that puts the onus on the victim for how the perpetrator behaves. I would then assert that some portion of men will use attire as an excuse for varying degrees of sexual assault.

Not the only thing going on there by any means, but for me that’s the big one. I would agree with you fully that “toxic masculinity” is not the only thing going on with sexual assault, and especially if you said that the Duluth Model (primary model for trying to deal with domestic violence) is over simplistic in asserting “patriarchy” as a cause for problems To draw a picture, exactly who is the patriarch in a lesbian relationship? They suffer far more domestic assault than do heterosexual married couples, after all.

But that said, there is a kernel of truth to the allegation that some of how we press issues of modesty and purity can indeed be harmful in that it really doesn’t flow from Scripture. Gothard’s work in general is rife with that.

[Bert Perry]

What is to be gained, again, is that when the outcry in public gets too loud, ruling boards of organizations like SWBTS are finally shamed into taking action. Almost all organizations have unwritten rules that members must abide by to remain a member of the group, and that’s a big reason why 1 Timothy 3:7 states that an elder must have a good reputation with outsiders. It is absolutely critical for organizations to listen to what outsiders see about them that they’re often not willing to admit to themselves.

[Kevin Miller]

Bert Perry wrote:

What is to be gained, again, is that when the outcry in public gets too loud, ruling boards of organizations like SWBTS are finally shamed into taking action. Almost all organizations have unwritten rules that members must abide by to remain a member of the group, and that’s a big reason why 1 Timothy 3:7 states that an elder must have a good reputation with outsiders. It is absolutely critical for organizations to listen to what outsiders see about them that they’re often not willing to admit to themselves.

Of course, getting shamed while listening to the public outcry is something churches will just have to endure when it comes to theological issues, such as gender identity and homosexuality and even roles within a marriage. The public wants us to throw out the Scriptures as being outdated on those issues. This is why the structure of autonomy is so incredibly important.

I see this objection often, but what it really assumes is that church leadership can’t show the difference between failing to get a rape reported (and hiding the records, apparently) and adhering to fairly obvious Biblical teaching. In that case, maybe….being an elder isn’t the role God has for them? They are called, after all, to be “men of the word” and “apt to teach”, and if they cannot appeal to the church’s highest authority, the Bible, to make their points in a winsome way, it will not help one iota to appeal to a lesser authority, that of the church.

[Bert Perry] I see this objection often, but what it really assumes is that church leadership can’t show the difference between failing to get a rape reported (and hiding the records, apparently) and adhering to fairly obvious Biblical teaching.

I wasn’t really making an objection. It was more of a concern that we don’t call too strongly for outside voices to pressure us, since we need our autonomy when dealing with theological issues. And i wasn’t assuming anything about the failure to report a rape. That’s just wrong, and everything that Aaron and others have written about autonomy here have agreed that criminal activity needs to be reported. I would definitely agree that the Bible is the church’s highest authority, so I’d be interesting in knowing if you have any other Scriptural supports for your position that outsiders need to be heeded other than the fact that NT authors wrote inspired Scripture (I have a hard time seeing that as a support since we have no people today giving inspired instruction to churches) and that pastoral candidates need to be respected by the world. Granted, I Timothy 3:7 is a strong verse for your position, but I don’t know that it would apply for every decision that a church would make. It seems like it is specifically about the choice of a pastor.

Kevin, part of my vehemence here arrives from the apparent fact that not everybody is agreed that we need to report rape. Greg pointed to some examples from the college we’re discussing here, and failure to report (and hiding evidence) just got Paige Patterson fired. We’re talking some pretty big names in fundagelicalism pretty recently. See also BJU, New Tribes, ABWE….like it or not, this is in our blood, and if our ecclesiology leads us to repeat the mistakes on the grounds that “it’s not big enough to report”, there will be Hell to pay.

Regarding the Biblical evidence, we’ve got all of the prophets, Balaam’s donkey, Naaman’s servant girl, all of the epistle writers, and also Timothy and Titus as examples of people who meddled in the affairs of local authorities and are commended for it. Isn’t that sufficient? Isn’t it sufficient that Paul not only models this, but also tells us to follow him in this? Isn’t it sufficient that Proverbs tells us about the wisdom of having advisers?

Put gently, the fact that churches often (but not always) selected their own leaders in the NT (see Acts 14;23, Titus 1:5 for exceptions) does not empower us to take a generally negative view of the testimony of outsiders, describe them as “far away and uninvolved”, and the like. This is especially the case when we consider that the seminaries we’re talking about train leaders for 15 million Southern Baptists and millions of other evangelicals and fundamentalists.

“part of my vehemence here arrives from the apparent fact that not everybody is agreed that we need to report rape”

Bert, I could go back over the entire thread, but I do not recall anyone here arguing that rape need not be reported to the authorities.

One of the undercurrents of this entire discussion seems to be the desire for simplicity as though all these situations are exactly the same, all have the same answer, fault is always entirely in one place, and the punitive actions that should be taken are always crystal clear. Unfortunately sin is a messy business, and these situations, even for police, require discernment and skill to sort out. Some situations are clearer than others, and we all seem to be in general agreement over situations that seem clear (based on what is publicly known) and were poorly handled.

From what I have seen on this thread:

1) no one here is saying don’t report it

2) no one here is saying perpetrators should be excused.

3. no one here is saying victims should be punished.

I jumped into the discussion because it seemed like some might be suggesting the failure to handle well clear situations was somehow connected to being a fundamentalist—as though poor handling of these problems was instructed in the Five Fundamentals, as Aaron pointed out.

[Bert Perry] like it or not, this is in our blood, and if our ecclesiology leads us to repeat the mistakes on the grounds that “it’s not big enough to report”, there will be Hell to pay.

But I fail to see how it is “our ecclesiology” that would be to blame, since groups with entirely different ecclesiologies, like the Catholics, also fail to report. The Hollywood industry, which doesn’t even have an ecclesiology, has failed to report. You say you don’t believe in bishops, so you yourself must be accepting the autonomy of churches, yet you argue against a “mindset” that encompasses other ecclesiologies and then blame it on OUR ecclesiology.

Regarding the Biblical evidence, we’ve got all of the prophets, Balaam’s donkey, Naaman’s servant girl, all of the epistle writers, and also Timothy and Titus as examples of people who meddled in the affairs of local authorities and are commended for it. Isn’t that sufficient?

Not really. All of the things you mentioned, except for Naaman’s servant, were directly affected by God or an actual apostle to give their messages. The prophets got their messages direct from God, the epistle writers were inspired, and God caused the donkey to talk. Do we have prophets or inspired writings or talking animals today? If we don’t have those things, then the comparison is useless. How can a useless comparison be sufficient?

Isn’t it sufficient that Paul not only models this, but also tells us to follow him in this?

The Catholic Church uses Paul’s command to follow his tradition as a means to add all sorts of traditions. I’d much rather go with actual commands from Scripture.

Isn’t it sufficient that Proverbs tells us about the wisdom of having advisers?

No one here has denied that listening to advisors can be a wise thing to do as churches make their decisions.

Put gently, the fact that churches often (but not always) selected their own leaders in the NT (see Acts 14;23, Titus 1:5 for exceptions) does not empower us to take a generally negative view of the testimony of outsiders, describe them as “far away and uninvolved”, and the like.

But if we are examining actual Bible verses about the interaction with outsiders, don’t we have to conclude that I Corinthians 6:1-6 has a generally negative view? Those verses say that people within the church ARE competent enough to make decisions, and that it’s shameful to have to go to outsiders for resolution.

Folks, the simple fact of the matter is that being superficially willing to take advice does not correlate to actually doing so. For that matter, stating that one must report crimes doesn’t necessarily get it done, either. To get the answers to that, you’ve got to understand the “corporate culture”, and that’s where, acknowledging other groups which have gotten into trouble for failure to report and hiding sexual assault, the culture of fundagelicals comes into play. As quality engineers like myself like to say, “corporate culture eats corporate initiatives for lunch.” I used to work in a company where anybody above 50 years old was still working for “Edgar”, who had sold the company 25 years previously and who had been dead for 20 years. Don’t underestimate the power of corporate culture, as it’s huge.

Now, Aaron’s framing of the issue is really helpful here in understanding our problem. He acknowledges the obvious, but then states a strong view of congregational autonomy that more or less says that the leadership ought to pick and choose when to listen to outside comment. That’s problem #1.

Problem #2 is how he describes outsiders, and it’s very consistent and pervasive. He talks about the “madness of crowds”, tells us consistently that insiders know better, that it’s almost always better to handle things inside, strictly bounds who does and does not qualify as an interested party (basically must be church member), ignores clear evidence that outsiders did indeed achieve good results, and more or less has a consistent “mood” in his writing of “you don’t know what you’re talking about, let me show you the door.”

In other words, while it’s theoretically possible to do the right thing, practically speaking any church that follows his lead is going to be conditioned not to do what’s right. That includes, by the way, failure to report criminal actions. Not everybody knows exactly what violates the law to begin with, and if the strongest thing you believe is autonomy and suspicion of outsiders, you’re going to put your finger on the scales when it’s clear evidence of a felony.

Even more bluntly, we need to remember that Aaron’s argument is almost identical to the justifications that were given in the ABWE, New Tribes, and BJU cases. You have an assumption of fairly radical autonomy combined with a strong suspicion of outsiders; the only difference is that there is a superficial agreement that we ought to report crimes. As I’ve demonstrated above, that’s a flimsy difference, especially given that a lot of offenders are stopped when someone deals earnestly with non-criminal behavior.

For example, I helped stop (temporarily I believe) a predator when I reported my (male) babysitter had given my brother and I a sex ed lesson. My babysitter’s father (possibly others) then told him, in effect, that a blanket party was in the offing if he didn’t quit his job, leave town, and promise never to work with kids again. So this stuff is very real to me, and is probably also very real to a lot of others in our churches.

In closing, here’s a good article from today’s Washington Post detailing some of the issues we fundagelicals indeed have. Well worth a read.

I remain convinced nobody commenting on this thread is against reporting crimes, or would refuse to listen to outside council and influence, or wouldn’t seek advice and guidance from peers in a difficult situation.

I worked all day yesterday, ran home to eat dinner, then spent three hours with a couple at my church, married 20 years, who have an awful marriage and want help fixing it. As I struggled to deal with the avalanche of issues and problems they’re bringing forward (yes, my biblical counseling classes have helped immensely, thanks Dr. Meyer at Maranatha!), and I watch both husband and wife collapse into tears of frustration, heartache and (some) repentance, I can’t help but chuckle about this entire comment thread.

I’ll leave the academic parsing about philosophical distinctions over abstract abuse complaints to the pundits. The takeaway for anybody following these issues is to:

1. Report abuse allegations to the proper authorities
2. Study about what forgiveness and repentance looks like
3. Understand the state and the local church have distinct, complementary roles to play in investigation and punishment of wrongdoers
4. Be more zealous for the Lord than you are for your local church’s (or para-church’s) reputation
5. Be introspective, and consider whether you’re part of a sub-cultural climate that demeans women and/or maligns abuse allegations

Take care.

Tyler, I would agree that nobody is going to admit they are going to suppress allegations of rape, and I would agree that few church leaders are going to admit they plan to ignore outsiders in solving problems. However, if you have a hard doctrine of local church autonomy and a general suspicion of outsiders, that is exactly the result that you are going to get. So to add to your list:

0. Look at church culture to see what unspoken assumptions are going to influence decisions to contradict written policies, laws, moral principles, and direction from church leadership.

I don’t see how we can watch the debacle going on in the SBC and conclude anything else.

[Bert Perry]

Tyler, I would agree that nobody is going to admit they are going to suppress allegations of rape, and I would agree that few church leaders are going to admit they plan to ignore outsiders in solving problems. However, if you have a hard doctrine of local church autonomy and a general suspicion of outsiders, that is exactly the result that you are going to get.

Based on your posts, I take that you don’t think church members (the insiders) are sufficiently unbiased or sufficiently Spirit-led to solve their own problems. You’ve said the “universal” church should play a role, but what is the mechanism for them to do that, other than the universal church just complaining that something needs to be done? Is it your position that the complaints of the universal church are from people totally without bias and are therefore always to be acted upon without any decision making input from the members of a congregation? If believing that church members can make their own decisions is just a “hard doctrine” that leads to cover-ups, then what is the solution apart from removing that decision making authority?

(I’d still like you to explain your perspective of the statements in I Cor 6:1-6 that talk about the ability of church members to solve their own problems.)

Kevin, you’re making this way too complicated. It’s not a debate over whether insiders or outsiders have more bias, or one does and one does not. It is all about recognizing what kind of biases are inherent in the system you intend to use.

If you have Aaron’s hard doctrine of local church autonomy accompanied by a strong suspicion against the views of outsiders—calling it the madness of crowds, calling them far away and uninvolved, and the like—the institutional tendency is exactly that. Comments from outside—which may be halfway around the world, in the next town, or simply from a consistent attender or member who isn’t in the “power circle”—are going to be ignored, and their makers insulted.

If you’ve got blind spots—and you know you do—that means that you are pretty much assured that you won’t hear those who point them out to you. See the problem? Again, that’s how Donn Ketcham wreaked havoc at ABWE, how dozens of perpetrators wreaked havoc at BJU, and how in the secular world, Larry Nassar and George Tyndall wrought havoc at MSU and USC.

And as I’ve noted before, you would evaluate outside witnesses exactly the same way the Bereans did with Paul, and really all of the early churches did with every itinerant teacher and epistle; by comparing what they said with the Old Testament and the known testimony of the Apostles. There is no innovation for today.

Regarding 1. Cor. 6, that only prohibits going to pagan judges, not heeding the wisdom of outsiders. If it prohibited the latter, we would need to excise 1 Tim. 3:7 and a lot of Proverbs from our Bibles, no? Again, what is required is simply a habit of discernment.

Based on your posts, I take that you don’t think church members (the insiders) are sufficiently unbiased or sufficiently Spirit-led to solve their own problems. You’ve said the “universal” church should play a role, but what is the mechanism for them to do that, other than the universal church just complaining that something needs to be done? Is it your position that the complaints of the universal church are from people totally without bias and are therefore always to be acted upon without any decision making input from the members of a congregation? If believing that church members can make their own decisions is just a “hard doctrine” that leads to cover-ups, then what is the solution apart from removing that decision making authority?

I’m not going to speak for Bert, but I did want to note one thing here.

As some of you may know, the church that Rachael and JJ Denhollander left over the issue with having CJ Mahaney speak came out and admitted who they were and made a public confession of their sin this week. Since many people here are far more sanguine with church leadership taking a lead on this than Bert or I, allow me to cite what the leadership said:

However, delight was not our only reaction. During Rachael’s impact statement she lamented, “My advocacy for sexual assault victims, something I cherished, cost me my church.” As the pastors of Immanuel Baptist Church, we knew that we were that church. After years of membership at Immanuel, Rachael and her husband Jacob had left our church voluntarily just weeks before the Nassar trial began. This departure is why ‘delight’ was not our only reaction to Rachael’s testimony. Instead, we felt confusion, sadness, frustration, introspection, fear, and had a host of other thoughts and emotions. Fortunately, because of Rachael’s decision not to name our church publicly, we were able to enter into a season of deep self-examination without the scrutiny of the outside world.

The weeks that followed produced a flurry of questions, conversations, and clarifications. We read every article, talked to hundreds of our church members, solicited advice from multiple church leaders, met with the Denhollanders personally, spent hours meeting as pastors, and, finally, met with our entire church family. By the time we met with our church family, we saw we had sin to confess. We had come to see that there were ways we had failed to serve the church we love, and we had failed to care adequately for the Denhollanders in a time of deep need.

Our particular failures did not stem from discouraging the Denhollanders to pursue justice in the Larry Nassar case. We did not discourage them in their pursuit of justice; in fact, we applaud those efforts. Rather, our failures stemmed from not listening to and properly understanding Rachael’s concerns about our invitation to have Sovereign Grace Church leaders preach to our church. We simply did not have the categories to fully discern what Rachael was saying at the time. This misunderstanding then played a role in our seeing the Denhollanders’ articulation of these concerns as divisive instead of informative. Finally, the poor pastoral care that resulted from these assumptions led the Denhollanders (understandably) to choose a new church.

As we interacted with the Denhollanders over their departure from Immanuel, we expressed things which we now deeply regret. In hindsight, we see we were sinfully unloving. We have since thoroughly repented to the Denhollanders and to the church we serve, seeking to confess every known sin. In return, the Denhollanders and our church family have been very gracious and forgiving.

So to recap:

1. Rachael, a victim of sexual abuse herself, flagged Mahaney’s presentation as problematic.
2. The church, by it’s own admission, ‘did not have the categories’ to understand the problems she raised.
3. Furthermore, the legitimate concern that Rachael and her family held were looked on as ‘divisive’, quite possibly initiating discussions about a church discipline situation.
4. Now, several years later, the church admits they were wrong in how they assessed the situation.

If the leadership of Immanuel didn’t believe the word of someone who had first hand experience with abuse, how many of our churches would believe an allegation like it from someone who doesn’t? Especially if the accused is an elder/deacon/teacher/pillar of the community? Paige Patterson went on record (in writing, no less) telling some of the staff at SEBTS that he wasn’t going to report an allegation of rape as rape and that he wanted to meet with her to “break her down” and that he wanted no other officials present when he met with her.

And we’re supposed to just assume that the leadership of Fundamental Independent Bible Church in Anytown, USA is automatically going to know what to do and how to handle these things rightly? I know Tyler talks about a failure in leadership, but there’s more than one way to fail, and many of those mistakes are made when we read a situation incorrectly, not because we were mislead or because of malice.

Brothers, this stuff matters. How you approach it matters. How you interpret the facts matter. What kind of input you get and receive matters. Don’t be naive enough to assume that the leadership will get it right, especially with serious issues like this. And certainly don’t assume that Joe in the pew will necessarily have the right tools to do it for you either. How many more women have to go through the bad counseling of places like BJU before we realize that we don’t always know what we’re doing and we need to do better?

TL;DR - Maybe George Lucas put it best in Return of the Jedi…

“Luke: Your overconfidence is your weakness.
The Emperor: Your faith in your friends is yours!”