Hundreds of sex abuse allegations found in fundamental Baptist churches across U.S.
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The individual cases for which they give details are heinous. How can church leaders be so blinded by the fear of “harming the ministry” that they cover these things up and let them continue?
More than once the article references the/a network of pastors, colleges, etc., including BJU. But of all the specific cases they describe, almost all are in the Hyles orbit (one or two involving Golden State); only one has any connection to BJU. Somehow none of the hundreds of people they interviewed educated them on the fairly distinct subsets of fundamentalists.
An unresolved, sticky issue: How do we acknowledge the greater moral fault and the exclusive legal fault of the adult, insist on not letting the adult get away with it, but also not deny/dismiss the (lesser) moral fault of the minor (where there was any)?
[dmyers]Suspect BJU got pulled in due to name recognition.The individual cases for which they give details are heinous. How can church leaders be so blinded by the fear of “harming the ministry” that they cover these things up and let them continue?
More than once the article references the/a network of pastors, colleges, etc., including BJU. But of all the specific cases they describe, almost all are in the Hyles orbit (one or two involving Golden State); only one has any connection to BJU. Somehow none of the hundreds of people they interviewed educated them on the fairly distinct subsets of fundamentalists…
There is an IFCA church near me that recently made the news because they are being sued. They had a congregant who apparently molested or attempted to molest several minors. I used to attend there and I knew the man pretty well prior to these accusations. The elders did not contact law enforcement and instead disallowed the man from working with youth. He still apparently had access to minors and did it several more times. Eventually the police became involved.
My parent’s have a neighbor that goes there and when it came up in the news my dad asked me about it. They are unbelievers and I was so grieved for the kids as well as the harm to the gospel. I told my dad that if they were a real church that cared about honoring God instead of being a social club they would immediately remove any elder that knew about it but didn’t report it to the authorities. As far as I know they did not. “Protecting the ministry” is a euphemism for “protecting our selfish pride and the place where we have our potlucks.” The ministry is about honoring the Lord no matter the cost. As terrible as these news stories are, I hope they at least cause some vigilance that protects children in the future.
The newspaper is actually the “Start-Telegram” from Fort Worth, TX not the “Star Tribune.”
If you look at the map on the article you can see reported or alleged instances across the country. There is one recent (2018) incident at Maranatha Baptist University and for BJU there is once incident highlighted from 2016. It is important to note that this map and the article itself does not suggest that either Maranatha or BJU handled their incidents inappropriately. If anything, this article focuses primarily upon Dave Hyles.
In Colorado, the map mentions Jocelyn Zichterman’s allegations she was assaulted. Somewhere she is smiling to herself about this article. It is hard to know to what degree to trust her testimony with her often bizarre and chaotic behavior, but perhaps that is a type of indication of her truthfulness as well.
I have been in the IFB world my entire life involving numerous churches in multiple states mostly because my family included several pastors of IFB churches across several states. I have yet to hear or see of even the slightest whiff of a story of a rumor that so-and-so pastor or deacon (or anyone else for that matter) was involved in assaulting anyone in the church I was attending or a family member was in a position of leadership. Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, just saying I’ve yet to see or hear of it personally.
I would agree that the Hyles orbit of hyper-authoritarian pastors is probably going to show the problems worse than “the rest of us”, but it’s worth noting that these orbits overlapped. For example, when I mentioned I grew up in Chesterton, a pastor friend who’d gotten his BA from Northland noted how thuggish the soccer team from Fairhaven was. He also related a story about how a church he’d attended when young almost fell into the Hyles orbit.
Take heed, lest we fall, no? We can be rightly thankful that our churches (I hope and pray) do not have the excesses of the Hyles orbit, but we are influenced by it at times.
Besides, GRACE didn’t do a 400 page report on BJU, and PII didn’t do a similar sized report on ABWE, because the “sane IFB” orbit was without fault, no? And as Josh notes, there are certain things that we need to watch out for.
- The Matthew 18 process for confrontation and repentance is emphasized over the Romans 13 obligation of the king to punish crimes, hence crimes are “dealt with” (not dealt with) in the church.
- Excess of authority on the part of pastors and leaders leads to not hearing those at the other end of the authority spectrum. This was a big deal in the BJU and ABWE reports.
- There is a premium on “not embarrassing the ministry.” You got something ugly? Hush now….
- We don’t like to talk about the ugly things that could happen, even though (Dinah, Tamar, etc..) they’re discussed in Scripture. We therefore tend to pretend it doesn’t happen. Again, hush now…
- We like to get people “into ministry” as fast as possible, often without knowing whether they’re qualified.
- People with authority tend to be believed over those without.
One thing to note here is that, apart from the Boy Scouts, the rest of the nation is really in the same place we are, looking at averages. Churches that get their act together have a real opportunity to show the light of God to the world in this. It doesn’t mean we believe every accusation as stated, but what it does mean is that we take these claims seriously and understand our own cultures enough to admit our own weakness in dealing with these crimes.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
[dmyers]
An unresolved, sticky issue: How do we acknowledge the greater moral fault and the exclusive legal fault of the adult, insist on not letting the adult get away with it, but also not deny/dismiss the (lesser) moral fault of the minor (where there was any)?
It is worth noting that legally speaking—AHEM, Esquire Myers—a minor cannot consent to sexual activity with an adult. This is the law in all 50 states. Victim-blaming is one of the nastiest parts of our culture that we need to address. “She seduced me” is also one of the top ways that those accused of molesting minors try to “defend” themselves. Here’s another big issue illustrated:
In Colorado, the map mentions Jocelyn Zichterman’s allegations she was assaulted. Somewhere she is smiling to herself about this article. It is hard to know to what degree to trust her testimony with her often bizarre and chaotic behavior, but perhaps that is a type of indication of her truthfulness as well.
In other words, since the victim’s behavior is not per our standards, we are not going to take her testimony seriously. If you wonder why this is a problem, consider the behavior of Tamar after she was raped by her brother Amnon, or that of Dinah after being raped at Schechem. Biblically speaking, this kind of crime leaves a mark, and there is no quicker way to become a stench in the eyes of your community than to suggest this means a complainant isn’t to be heeded.
Or, put more bluntly, if you want to meet someone like Randall Margraves, just without the protection of armed bailiffs and metal detectors, make sure you take steps to blame the victim.
Regarding the notion that people haven’t heard about such things, the fact of the matter is that nationwide, somewhere around 20-25% of kids (lower for boys, higher for girls) are sexually abused before age 18. My brother and I are among them. (noncontact, our parents believed us, our babysitter’s parents ran the teacher who was molesting a bunch of boys out of town) Moreover, if we are indeed reaching out to people in our community, we will most likely have a few survivors of child and adult sexual abuse in our churches.
So why don’t we hear about it? Look above. As a rule, victims do not feel comfortable reporting abuse to us because of shame for what happened, and very often because they’ve seen how we treated others who came forward. They are not up for a blanket party.
On the flip side, though I make no pretense of being the “safest” person out there, I’ve had a few people step forward to tell me about things that have happened to people in my church in the past couple of years. Nothing that one could move forward with—one case had already been examined by the police, another simply is at the “hearsay” level—but if we think that our churches are not ministering to victims, or that our associations haven’t created them in the past (or are creating them today), we are kidding ourselves.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
You have got to be kidding me that this clown has another job but then I looked at where he is: “Pastor” Greg Neal who would be in jail for videotaping minors changing clothes except for the statute of limitations. It is mindblowing that anyone would go to that so-called church, especially if they have children.
Mike Zachary is another one that got thrown out of Golden State for horrific sexual behavior but is now an associate pastor at another IFB “church” in CA.
I agree with Bert’s assessment - that “It doesn’t mean we believe every accusation as stated, but what it does mean is that we take these claims seriously and understand our own cultures enough to admit our own weakness in dealing with these crimes.”
In Jocelyn’s case and her allegations she was abused - she says she was … . but, perhaps not. She has pulled enough stunts and has been accused by many of various lies and false accusations over recent times that it makes it hard do know which way to go. Should she be heard? Should she be listened to? Yes!!!! Should her testimony be evaluated within the context of her other actions? Yes, as well.
I completely agree with MMartin’s post, and furthermore, I submit that if someone had understood what Jocelyn lived through and experienced, and dealt with it immediately and appropriately, the trajectory of her entire life could possibly have been altered and she would be in a better place today. But instead (from what I know) she was shut down and stifled from getting the help she needed, so it’s no surprise that she ended up where she has. Her story is incredibly grievous and discouraging to me.
You cover something over and sin festers and eventually explodes. Our ‘movement’, as I have said many other times, must do better than this. I thank God we aren’t in the HAC orbit, but there is interaction on the fringes there and that needs to end as well.
"Our task today is to tell people — who no longer know what sin is...no longer see themselves as sinners, and no longer have room for these categories — that Christ died for sins of which they do not think they’re guilty." - David Wells
I’ve always argued that this is a leadership issue, at the local level. Some leaders (of all ecclesiastical stripes) lack the moral courage necessary to act decisively in these situations. This is true in ecclesiastical circles, and true outside, too.
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
…that I noticed in a LOT of the cases in this report is the presence of David Gibbs and The Christian Law Association. Study is philosophy and practices and you’ll see that many of these ministries have been TAUGHT and ADVISED to lie, cover-up, avoid, go silent, transfer, admit nothing, etc… for the “sake of the Kingdom” and to limit liability. Gibbs was and is a master of that. Many churches consulted his law firm well before they consulted Scripture.
….the article just hit “The Drudge Report”….
[DLCreed]…that I noticed in a LOT of the cases in this report is the presence of David Gibbs and The Christian Law Association. Study is philosophy and practices and you’ll see that many of these ministries have been TAUGHT and ADVISED to lie, cover-up, avoid, go silent, transfer, admit nothing, etc… for the “sake of the Kingdom” and to limit liability. Gibbs was and is a master of that. Many churches consulted his law firm well before they consulted Scripture.
Gibbs is, or perhaps more accurately was, the “go-to” lawyer for large portions of IFB churches and ministries, especially the Hyles orbit. No surprise to see his name—or that of David Gibbs Jr., his son—in that context. The son did something interesting by representing Lourdes Torres (Manteufel) in her lawsuit against Doug Philipps and Vision Forum, but I don’t know where that one ended up. Not sure how completely he did, or did not, turn against his dad’s career.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
The thing that is sticking with me regarding Martin’s comments is that a lot of people would view that as an attempt to discredit Zichterman. So I took a look at what’s publicly available, and it appears she walked away from the faith altogether, started a Facebook site encouraging people to leave IFB churches, and participated in the jailing of the rapist of Tina Anderson. She also seems to have had some spats with fellow activists against child sexual abuse in the church.
Now maybe there’s a lot more there, but given that sexual assault does lead to mental illness, erratic behavior does not prove anything on whether an allegation is true. What you do for that is to look at the details and see whether those little details—the ones seemingly unrelated to the crime especially—pan out. If they don’t pan out, it falls into the void of “insufficient evidence to proceed”, and if they are proven false in such a way that it’s obvious the complainant knew they were false, then you’ve got perjury.
If you want to end your ministry to sexual assault victims, there are few better ways to do so than to assume that all erratic behavior indicates falsehood, or equate “facts not panning out” with perjury.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
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