Concord NH Rape Case Victim Goes Public

There was absolutely no reason for that 15 year old girl to be publicly disciplined at church.

Again, do we know yet that this happened? I don’t think I’ve seen that in Trinity/Phelp’s version of events, yet and we should probably leave it in the “maybe” column… and wait and see. We also don’t know that there was anything rising to the level of cover up.
At this point, probably best to neither believe nor disbelieve the parts of the accounts that seem to be contradictory.

Edit: In fact the story linked to a couple posts up containst this statement..

Phelps said this wasn’t a case of the church disciplining Anderson. Instead, it was a chance for the congregation to help Anderson.
“Church discipline is the removal of a person from the assembly,” Phelps said. “This was not that. This was a chance for people in the church assembly to embrace her, and they did.”

Also, let’s keep in mind what responsibilities belong to whom. The church deals with sin, the authorities deal with crime. They are not the same thing.

In dealing with the sin, the church’s responsibility is to seek the restoration of the sinning member. Disfellowshipping is merely a step in the restoration process and not one you take if the believer has repented. So once the sin has been dealt with biblically, the church has nothing more to do except see that the law is also honored and the authorities have their opportunity to deal with the crime. Does that responsibility involve more than notifying the authorities? I’m really not sure if it does or not.

[AB] Does that responsibility involve more than notifying the authorities? I’m really not sure if it does or not.

So, do you let a confessed/convicted child molester serve in the church nursery? Do you put a forgiven embezzler in a role as church treasurer?

Forgiveness and restored fellowship does not mean that all privileges needs be returned. Forgiveness can be immediate, but building trust takes time, and may never be fully restored in some cases. That in no way reduces the reality of forgiveness and restoration to Christian fellowship.

Come on Aaron, are you buying the story that the church/Phelps did not practice church discipline on that girl? I think they are playing with words here. They are limiting “church discipline” to mean putting a person out of the church. I have never read anyone who has written on church discipline (MacArthur/Dever/Grudem) limit “church discipline” to just the final step of excommunication. I’ve always heard the term used to refer to any point in the process. Yes, this girl was disciplined by that church. I wish Phelps and that church would understand that this doesn’t just involve them. This story has been on the wire services, was on CBS the other morning, it is giving fundamentalism a bad name. For young fundamentalists who hold a tentative attachment to fundamentalism, this could well be the think that pushes many to just walk away.

[Aaron Blumer] Also, let’s keep in mind what responsibilities belong to whom. The church deals with sin, the authorities deal with crime. They are not the same thing.

In dealing with the sin, the church’s responsibility is to seek the restoration of the sinning member. Disfellowshipping is merely a step in the restoration process and not one you take if the believer has repented. So once the sin has been dealt with biblically, the church has nothing more to do except see that the law is also honored and the authorities have their opportunity to deal with the crime. Does that responsibility involve more than notifying the authorities? I’m really not sure if it does or not.

But in an attempt to work toward reconciliation within the body and restoration of the sinning member, wouldn’t the process demand repentance, which would certainly also demand taking full responsibilities for one’s actions? If that action was a crime—and that isn’t in question here—I would demand the criminal take full responsibility, which would include turning himself in to the authorities and accepting whatever consequences that involved. Ernie Willis admitted to his pastor that he had gotten a 15 yr old church member pregnant—a crime against a minor. The pastor knew he was guilty of a crime for which he did not take full responsibility, yet the man continues as a member in good standing, even serving in various capacities in the church? I’m sorry, but this is inconceivable to me.

As far as the “church discipline” process, at least as it has been repeatedly described:

Phelps said this wasn’t a case of the church disciplining Anderson. Instead, it was a chance for the congregation to help Anderson.
“Church discipline is the removal of a person from the assembly,” Phelps said. “This was not that. This was a chance for people in the church assembly to embrace her, and they did.”

….isn’t it fascinating and terribly problematic that both the victim of the crime and the criminal were treated in the same way? Sounds like one could conclude that Willis, likewise, was not subject to church discipline, rather, “it was a chance for people to embrace [him] and they did.” Again, this boggles the mind.

I agree with Bryan on this one ( like usual :) ). Maybe I am reading this wrong, but it seems like some make a big difference between violent rape and [URL=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statutory_rape] statutory rape[/URL]. I don’t make that big of a distinction. But even if I did, what bothers me most about what we know so far is that Willis was restored back almost right away (not to deacon, but other ministires). I am not sure how long I would wait to restore a repentant person to the music ministry, but there would be a period of time. The length of the time for violent rape would probably longer than the other, but both would be a period after their prison sentence was served. I cannot conceive of when I would ever let him to work with minor age children again.

I hope that part of the story is incorrect and he was not serving in music ministry right away and that he ever helped with kids again.

I think in many ways all of this speculation on our part is simply silly. Talk about giving an answer without sufficient information! But while I am sure some of the comments are coming from individuals who have been responsible for leading a church to actually follow steps of church discipline, unless you have actually been there, the one who knows He is accountable to God to try to follow all of the Bible’s teachings concerning these types of issues, we really ought to pause before casting stones.

Say, Kirk, I’m just curious to what you are referring by “all of this speculation”?

[Jonathan Charles] Come on Aaron, are you buying the story that the church/Phelps did not practice church discipline on that girl? I think they are playing with words here. .

I wish folks would calm down and stop leaping.
To say that I neither believe nor disbelieve the woman’s account (where it differs from Trinity/Phelps’ version) is not the same as saying I believe Trinity’s account. At this point, I neither believe nor disbelieve all the details of their account either. My point is that a victim in a situation is not automatically correct in everything she/he asserts any more than anyone else involved is automatically correct or incorrect. I think it’s premature to judge the case at this point based on either side’s say so.

But I do have a bias. We all do. My own bias is generally in favor of those accused rather than in favor of accusers. But it’s not all that hard to back up a few steps and gain some objectivity if we bother to try.

As for discipline vs. other church action…
I’ve already described—in an earlier post—one scenario in which church action could easily be construed as “discipline” that is not discpline. When there is a pregnancy, you are not going to be able to stop a congregation from talking about it. So some open talk needs to occur in order for the congregation and the member to move forward. I don’t personally see why that talk would need to done by the victim (and several reasons would commend not doing it that way!), but in what I’ve read, I haven’t yet seen the Concord side of things specifically acknowledge that she had to do any speaking in front of the church. Maybe I missed that. But either way, I wasn’t there—and with the information out so far, I can’t form a fair opinion on whether it should have been done that way. (At the risk of putting too fine a point on it, neither can anyone else)

It will all get sorted out soon enough. More details will come out and it will be possible to see consistency or lack thereof in one side or the other’s version of events. (I personally think I see a trend there already but it’s not important to elaborate. It’ll be clear soon enough)

@Greg… no, I do not believe that restoration of a sinning church member necessarily involves fitness for particular roles. Just as “sin” and “crime” are two different things (though often overlapping categories), so “restored” and “serving in a particular capacity” are two different things.

After a long (very long) time not really being on SI, I’m back.
I wouldn’t normally use something like this to come back on, since it is so abnormal, but I’m a little ticked off.

I have maybe a little more insight into this situation than others, seeing that my wife (who hasn’t renewed her membership after everyone had to re-register a while ago) and my in-laws were members of Trinity Baptist Church in the past, and my wife also attended the high school there. She did not know the victim in this present case, having come to Trinity after this all occurred, but she does know some of the others involved and their families. She sat under the teachings of Pastor Phelps for a number of years.

Let me say this first, since I think its the most important thing. I’m most upset about this because of the slight that this has been on the Gospel of Christ. The way things were done here (even giving the benefit of the doubt to both sides) has left enough room for people that hate the truth to mount an attack on that truth and alienate people. I know for a fact that other situations have occurred like this before in various places, and they have been handled in a way that didn’t lead to national scandal.
Sure, people that want to attack Christianity will always find a way, but most of the time they don’t have such powerful arguments.

Secondly, I’m going to avoid speculating as much as possible. Right now this is just a lot of people blaming each other for messing up. Until there are actual facts, as considered by the law, all we’re doing is muddying the waters. I know that people that want to make this an all-out attack on the Gospel are already doing that enough, so we should just stamp that out on our end.

A whole lot could be said on the front of Church Discipline, and I would love to deal with that, as we did have a lengthy discussion on the subject in the past on SI, that I wouldn’t mind repeating, but this is not the proper venue. It gets too much into what various people are claiming about each other, so its too close to speculation for my mind.
The only thing I can say on this subject right now is that its partly a minister’s job (another good biblical word being “shepherd”) to keep his flock safe. I don’t see a person that has committed a crime and not paid the legal penalty (which is far less in our nation than the one God exacted for those in Israel) being someone safe to have in a flock, in particular when they didn’t come and confess their sin and repent of their own volition in the first place. Forgiveness does not eliminate the consequences of sin on this Earth.

I also want to make it clear that I’m not an apologist for TBC. This issue has been discussed a lot in our home for the last little while, and I wanted to put some thoughts out there, but I’m not trying to support either side. I have some specific differences in doctrine and practice from TBC, so don’t tune out what I have to say because you think I’m just here to help one side.

Some of the things that have been said around this entire event don’t bear any resemblance to anything that my wife or in-laws observed during their years at Trinity.
There was no “domination” of the women by the men of the congregation. Now, this could be the simple backlash of modern ideas against the biblical principle of submission, but its something that has been played up a lot and said to be an issue in many IFB churches, and that’s just not the case here.
While TBC and its school were of decent size, they were not the only thing allowed or encouraged in the lives of the people there. While my wife still talks about and maintains friendships with those from Trinity, she speaks as much or more about friends she made in the Concord area outside of Trinity. This was not some insular group that was trying to maintain their secrecy.
In the years that my wife’s family was there this issue did come up in little whispers. What she says she had heard was that this was all consensual. Again, that doesn’t really mean anything, I just wanted to fill in some blanks so people could understand more completely.
Mr Willis was eventually put out, not for this incident, but for cheating on his wife several years later, so he did not remain a “member in good standing” as such.

I hope I’ve managed to accomplish something here by giving some more of the facts and helping to address things that don’t make any sense to me.
I honestly hope that we can just let this go for a little while until we have some more concrete facts. Let others interfere with the workings of justice by speculation and attacks, let us uphold the letter and spirit of the law by letting things be done before we start acting.

Speculation??? Sure, there are 2 sides to every story, but both sides have spoken. Phelps’ side comes up short as far as biblically defending the church’s actions back then. The woman told of having been molested earlier in life. When this came to the attention of the church, they ministered to her by advising her to go to the prison to see the man in order to forgive him. As a result of that, when she was raped twice by Willis’ she didn’t say anything until she realized she was pregnant. According to the woman’s statement, Phelp’s applied Deuteronomy 22:23-24 to her situation and the conclusion drawn was that the sex was consensual (since she waited until she was pregnant to say anything). She had to confess to the church, the man made a confession (though not to his actual sin). Since she could not attend the Christian school, and the mother’s work prohibited her from homeschooling her herself, she was sent to Colorado to live with a Christian family who would homeschool her. She was even asked to write a letter of apology to the man’s wife. Her baby was born and given up for adoption. Now 13 years later she is saying that the sex was not consensual. Clearly, it is a matter of who you believe. Lord willing, the man, Willis, makes an honest confession and this whole matter could be resolved. Phelps and the church would certainly have to apologize to the victim. What I would like to know is how Phelps became convinced that the sex was consensual. Did he just go on Dt. 22:23-24? Did he weigh the testimony of the man with greater weight? Why did he not understand that authority figures have to be very careful in dealing with matters with minors? Children and adolescents can be coerced into saying what authority figures want them to say simply because the authority they have causes the minors to want to please them or, out of fear of what might happen, they say what they know the authority figures are looking for. It simply will not do to have those involved say, “Well, she did admit it.”

Phelps does need to speak out in detail on this. Short quotes to new organizations will not do.

While we don’t know for sure if the sex was consensual, we do know that it occurred. The “consensual” excuse is one that I’ve heard numerous times from men who have sexual relations with minors. “Young girls are just attracted to me.” “She came on to me.” The fact is that his act was no accident or mistake and he was fully capable of saying no.

It is long past the time for SI to shut down this thread and not allow anymore conjecture on this. Please!

I agree Bob.

[Bob T.] It is long past the time for SI to shut down this thread and not allow anymore conjecture on this. Please!

Bob, I kind of agree, and kind of disagree.

The facts of this matter will not be known with certainty to any of us until Heaven. Even after the criminal and civil courts have finished their work, we still won’t know. So, if we’re going to discuss how these things should have been handled, we’re going to have to do it based on a series of conjectures (as in “If this is what happened, they should have done this rather than that.”).

I think we should stop accusing and judging motives based on inadequate information. But I think the speculation process helps us plan what we will do when we are confronted with this kind of situation in our church — particularly when linked to Scriptural reflections on the various scenarios we imagine may have been going on.