On Accusation and Rebuke

Your speak of a “longstanding culture of gossip at ABWE.” Just what do you know about it personally? Were you part of ABWE? Are you claiming to know by “first-hand or second-hand” knowledge? I was a part of ABWE for 23 years. I went to school with Wendel Kempton, who, it is claimed, was privy to the information about Don Ketcham. I know the others who were implicated. NOT ONCE did any mention of the Don Ketcham’s problem ever surface. Some of my associates there were in Bangladesh at the time of the misconduct. My pastor was on the Board and, as far as I know, was not aware of these matters. Were you in any of these close and intimate friendships? Just how do you suppose to be so aware? Just why are you so intent on keeping this alive? Hasn’t ABWE suffered enough already, and perhaps rightly so? Are you as intent on following up and pressing for “justice” about every wind of gossip you hear? I would like to know your motivation for keeping this alive? Have you personally been injured by it? If not, it is not your battle. Let those who may have been hurt or a part of the matter pursue any further reprisals.

Hardly. Three people associated with ABWE made the same claim to PII, knowing it would likely be printed. They were either gossiping or colluding to lie.

If i am trying to prove anything about Robert Ketcham, that is hearsay. Grounds for an investigation, but not for declaring him anything.

If I am looking at the culture of ABWE, it’s admissible evidence. Read the PII report, Jim. Read it carefully. A lot of people knew about Donn Ketcham’s sin and chose to do nothing about it. PII also found evidence that ABWE staffers deliberately hid evidence from them, a charge also mentioned by GRACE—which was fired in 2013.

And regarding ABWE, the ugly fact of the matter is that these things are NOT going away until they prove that they are both capable and willing to address issues like this. Shove the accusations against the elder Ketcham under the table because it was “not relevant”, you’ve taken several steps back. Sorry, that’s how it works.

Moreover, I’m saying this because I value ABWE enough to encourage their repentance and growth. I’m saying this here as well because I value what our response to this says to the world as well. Like it or not, somebody needs to investigate this or it will fester. It’s a bad testimony.

Also, Jim, look at your response to me. Carefully. It’s more or less an ad hominem attack combined with appeal to authority and a bunch of other basic logical fallacies. Again, not a good testimony to the world.

That there are still three individuals who may have repeated a gossip who were not deal with and who should be fired? And you seem to think that because that possibly three individuals heard and maybe repeated this gossip that this means there is a “ABWE culture” that allowed this and this still calls for more investigation? You yourself agreed that a lot of staffers were fired in 2013. It looks to me like they were “capable” and “willing to address issues like this” once they were presented with the necessity to do so. No one is still “shoving accusations against the elder Ketcham under the table.” They should stay just where all un-validated gossip stays — forgotten. It is the gossip who wants to keep delving, looking, trying to prove something that has been heard or insinuated, especially when no one else sees the need to continue doing so. So if you (and only you) had some reason to believe that Robert Ketham had committed some impropriety during his years of ministry, now that he is dead, what would be your Scriptural responsibility? What do you suppose the “enemy of our souls” would want done? Suppose someone did think it important to investigate this and did find something, how would that benefit the Body of Christ? At best, it might support what the world wants to say about the Church — that we are all hypocrites, that many are hiding sins that they have confessed and hope that no one will have reason to lead a search party to discover. When, Bert, is the time to “forget those things that are behind and press forward to those things are are before, to the prize of the high-calling of God in Christ Jesus”? ABWE and its missionaries have paid a high price for their failures. Please don’t continue to add to the sorrow of those events. Unless you have some personal grievance that needs to be settled, just leave it in the hands of God, and get on with the responsibilities that you have in service to Christ.

Larry, I see that you are arguing against Bert’s position, but I don’t understand what you are arguing should happen now. Forgive me if I’ve missed it, could you state it for me?

Jim, I’m going to deal with one sentence only here and say it point blank: ABWE cannot just leave things behind and press on towards that high calling without addressing (hopefully resolving) the allegations against Robert Ketcham by three of its associates. Child rape leaves a lifelong mark, and if a parent (say myself) sees unresolved accusations like this, he can only assume that the mission agency is not really serious yet about dealing with this.

You can’t deal with this just by firing people. You need to set policies that encourage the reporting of things like this and then carry them out faithfully. That includes when you’ve got a good hunch they won’t be substantiated. It’s time for ABWE to make some phone calls and talk to some people and see where it goes.

You are asking ABWE “to set policies that encourage the reporting of things like this.” Do you even know that such policies have indeed been set in place and missionaries are being trained to watch out for such occurances? That is what, I have been told by ABWE personnel, is now taking place. Are you inferring that child molestation is still going on or being covered up in ABWE ministry anywhere in the world? Maybe you should offer your services to ABWE to do all the things you are inferring are NOT being done. I’m sure they would readily respond to your guidance if your ideas make any sense. It seems strange to me that there are many who knew Robert Ketcham as well or better than anyone on the staff of ABWE. Gossip like that which is being circulated here would surely have surfaced years ago from the mouths of some of his contemporaries. Are you saying that the “three” who have made allegations have first-hand knowledge? Is that what the PII report insinuated? If not, it is gossip and not worthy to be repeated by anyone. Do you have something against Robert Ketcham, that you insist on an investigation to see if something can be discovered or verified? It sounds to be like a personal vendetta, but I could be wrong. If you were on the staff of ABWE, just what would you recommend their doing at this point?

Jim, I’ve stated what ought to be done about 20 times already, as have Donn Arms and Jonathan Charles, in about the same words, in this very thread. Take a look and see if you can figure it out. If not, maybe a reading comprehension class is in order. It’s not that complicated.

If you can succeed in getting the three “witnesses” at ABWE to confirm the truthfulness of what they said, more power to you. I truly am not trying to be ornery. It would help if you could give your counsel with a Scriptural context or support. I’ll admit that at 81 years I might be a little senile, but I don’t see why PII would allow something to go into an official report of their findings without lending support to the reason why they permitted a good man of the past to be accused without supporting proof. It reflects on their work as much as it does on the people who made the remarks that were reported. I’ll agree that Al Cockrell and others should explain how it was good to bring this up and what connection it had to the case under investigation. If it had nothing to do with supporting the investigation of Dr. Don Ketcham and others who covered up his sin. they should confess their error, or perhaps resign, as you suggested. Is there anything more that ABWE could do to satisfy your point of view?

Larry, I see that you are arguing against Bert’s position, but I don’t understand what you are arguing should happen now. Forgive me if I’ve missed it, could you state it for me?

At the very least, Pii should correct their report by removing the claims, and issue a public apology for their actions in repeating this charge without evidence. In addition, it seems reasonable that other arrangements should be made for the damage done to ABWE for these charges being made public outside the contract and without evidence.

ABWE should now clarify whatever relationship they had with Robert Ketcham. If Ketcham ever had any official position with ABWE, they should speak to whether or not they had ever heard this accusations and what they knew about it and did about it. It is likely, however, that if ABWE says nothing, this will soon pass. It is doubtful that very many people know about it or would be persuaded one way or the other by it. Again, this situation is at least thirty and probably more than fifty years old. And the situation with Donn Ketcham seems to an isolated case (compared to the thousands of missionaries they have had). There is likely little fallout from it beyond the initial PR problems.

Unfortunately, the information should have never been repeated. However, the damage has been done. It goes to show the danger of irresponsible speech.

… regarding “how do I know?”, it’s really a simple process of deduction. Either the three accusers were relaying gossip that had to have originated before 1978, or they lied—conspired to lie would be the best explanation, actually. The only thing I’m assuming here is the more gracious interpretation towards the accusers. They did so knowing that the allegations were likely to appear in a report.

If you go back and read my questions, I think you will see that you did not respond to them. You said the allegations were sat on for forty years. My question was how do you know that. This does not give us any insight into how you know that the allegations were sat on for forty years. There are other options than you present here. And deduction is not always simple and it is not the same as knowledge.

So again, how do you know these allegations were sat on for more than forty years?

Moreover, I believe you’re assuming quite a bit when you say the charges are baseless.

Actually, that was stipulated. Pii said there was no evidence uncovered that the charges were true. Therefore, for the purposes of the report, they are baseless charges. There is no basis for them according to Pii.

As I’ve explained above repeatedly, nobody’s talked with the three accusers, let along other people in ABWE and GARBC offices at the time, to figure these things out.

How do you know no one has talked to them?

You would demonstrate the allegations were baseless any number of ways from the sources mentioned, but not without talking to them.

You can’t really prove a negative. And this far removed, it’s doubtful you can prove anything.

Again, bring it into the open.

The time to do that was before the charge was repeated without merit. Pii should have brought it into the open by investigating it for evidence. Otherwise, they should have left it out.

Bert, this is incredibly simple to me. I can’t imagine how you can sustain your position on this. It makes no sense to me.

I’ve stated what ought to be done about 20 times already

I think the problem is that you fail to see that the issue should have never been raised to begin with. You may be right that ABWE needs to make some statement (though I doubt many know now, and it is doubtful the legs on this are very long). But it should have never come up to begin with. That’s the major problem.

[Larry] ABWE should now clarify whatever relationship they had with Robert Ketcham….

It’s really not all that difficult, but it seems some who post here may have an agenda that won’t let them see clearly or acknowledge what happened and ought to be done to rectify the error. Larry has reduced it to simple terms. Any who wish to keep debating the issue aren’t making sense to the rest of us. ABWE has had a splendid ministry with thousands of missionaries who serve all over the world for many decades. That this one incident occurred, serious as it was, is tragic. It doesn’t detract, however, from the godly ministry of many. What it does do is reveal how, even in a God-blessed ministry, human failure can mar the work and cast doubt upon the ministry of many others. We should all be warned.

Larry, a few big errors on your and Jim’s part, really, and that’s part of why I’m not answering every question; they’re not relevant in light of what you’re missing.

First of all, you’re missing the nature of investigations, where the very fact that you talk with someone tells them “it’s OK to talk.” Hence they generally end up telling you a lot more, and there is often a bit of serendipity which sends a good investigator on a second investigation. So to say “this is unrelated so don’t mention it” goes against the rules of what you’re trying to accomplish. Good investigations often rely a lot on “serendipity”. The line worker who messed up product A notes a huge flaw in procurement. The kid in for stealing a candy bar tells you where the drug kingpin is, that sort of thing.

Second, the charges are only “baseless” in the sense of a politician calling charges “baseless” to discourage or hinder an investigation. They are not baseless, but “uninvestigated”, and it’s very common for someone to have a pristine record with his known assocoations, but be found to be in grievous sexual sin. You have four reliable people saying the same thing? Time to make some phone calls.

Third, you’re both missing the fact that the import of these allegations may not be solely, or even significantly, about the accused. Rather, it’s primarily about the culture at ABWE that allowed allegations to keep quiet for decades. I can forgive examples of grievous sin, but when I see cultural habits like refusing to investigate or hiding evidence, I know that the organization is setting themselves up for a repeat.

And how do I know they didn’t investigate? Easy; the allegations are vague and unsourced. Any decent investigator (even a QE like myself) could have fleshed this out a LOT with half an hour of phone calls. Had an investigation been done, the description would have been far different.

Since you seem to be the only person on this thread who understands what has been going on at ABWE for the last 40 years, maybe you could offer your services to get all the truth out to the public and show them how to resolve the mess they got themselves into. Certainly, everything else that has been said here completely misses the mark. I, for one, hope that you can resolve this issue forthwith. If PII is really a respected investigative agency, they would no doubt be happy to have the assistance of a QE (sorry, I don’t know what that stands for, though I sought to know on the internet). Since I am apparentlly not even qualified to make an educated guess on the issue (despite the fact that I knew and worked closely with most of the principals in the case for many years), I most gladly yield to those who know more than I and bow out. I will be following the conversation, however, to see how it goes from here on out. Cheers!

Jim, I actually have contacted ABWE about this, and I hope they take action. This is a gut check for them; are they going to honor Robert Ketcham’s memory enough to figure out whether there was real evidence, or whether it was just the gossip mill that they sinfully fell into?

The key here is that if they don’t address this, the rank and file will assume that the new policies aren’t that important, because after all the president didn’t conform to them. If they do, their new policies get a big boost. In a manner of speaking, avoiding future Donn Ketchams depends on how they treat the legacy of his father.

QE= quality engineer, by the way. We’re not just pocket protectors and control charts, but we also do a lot of detective work to figure out what’s really going on under the hood of an organization. So all these indicators of trust and so on mean a great deal in my world. In this case, the example sets off all kinds of warnings.