FBI: Did Jack Schaap take teen across state lines for sex?

How is it that when a pastor is caught in sexual immorality with a 16/17 year old girl you don’t know what to do?

Did you read the interview with Glover? He said they didn’t know what to do until Gibbs told them they had to fire him and report it.

Larry, this is exactly the way people are when they have been in an abusive authority relationship for years. I recently saw a church constitution from these circles which stated that there is no procedure for removing the pastor because the Scriptures give no basis for ever removing the pastor. I don’t know if Hammond’s constitution said that, but that has been the practice and mindset of that group. So it’s entirely believable, both from Glover’s evidence and from the way Hammond and others like them have worked, that they didn’t know what to do. If they didn’t know what to do about Hyles, it’s hardly surprising that they’d have a hard time with this.

Now, as to your last paragraph, I agree 100%, but there have been people on this thread who have been about them. And that is uncharitable.

But this conversation about “medical leave” didn’t start with people saying, “What lesson should we learn?” It started with castigation, and some of the things you are objecting to were in response to that. I suspect everyone here would agree that it would have been better if they said nothing.

[Larry]

Sadly, no one who is accusing the FBCH Board of lying has yet to demonstrate any evidence. Clearly, to these Christian consciences, evidence matters not, just what they assume.

Huh? They provided the evidence when they fired him for sexual misconduct. There are no assumptions necessary. And it is clear that they knew prior to Sunday, and it was enough of knowledge to keep him out of the pulpit, and it was likely absolutely confirmed by that time.

I imagine there is no amount of conversation that will persuade you that it is wrong to mislead a congregation as to the reason why their pastor is not preaching, and will fired. But it seems obvious that saying “medical leave” was clearly misleading in order to cover up the real issue, at least for a time. There was nothing medical about it. It was moral, and no one disputes that they knew it was moral. If they wanted to defend the “medical leave” statement, they could have done so by a clear statement about it. But you notice that they haven’t. There’s a reason for that, I imagine: They knew it wasn’t medical.

Someone contacted me with concerns about one of my posts. In his email, he expressed concern that people might be “defending” Hammond simply because they are in the fundamentalist camp. In my view, they aren’t in any camp I want to be part of. But after replying to him, I thought I’d repost something I said about C.J. Mahaney some months back:

I hesitated to even post, and deleted my last one because I hated to add to a thread that, in my view, has said way too much. It’s not charitable to discuss the sins of our brethren (even the Conservative Evangelical ones ) any more than we have to. Sometimes, it’s necessary, but it’s hard for me to see why in this case. But I wanted to endorse the plea not to rush to judgment.

And I know there are differences between Mahaney and the Hammond deacons. Mahaney acknowledged a problem, with the Hammond deacons apparently haven’t. The Hammond deacons changed their behavior. Hopefully, Mahaney has, too. They aren’t the same, so no one has to refute me on that point. I’m not claiming they are.

The principle is the same, and it applies to both cases. It’s not charitable to discuss the sins of our brethren any more than we have to. Hopefully, the men at Hammond are brethren, though certainly the Gospel has not always been preached there with clarity. But they profess to be, and lacking evidence to the contrary, I’ll treat them as such.

And with that, I’ll exit this thread for good.

According to the dictionary, “castigate” means to “rebuke or criticize in a severe manner.” It’s possible people are “castigating” on this thread, but I just see for the most part “criticizing.” “Castigating” seems to be an inflammatory word that is used instead of “criticizing.”

Personally, I have approached this from the perspective of asking myself, “What should I learn from this situation and what might I do if I were faced with a similar situation?” Now, none of us can say for sure what we would do in such a situation. I know what I hope I would do, but of course I can’t be sure. One of the very first posts mentioned the difference in how this situation was handled verses how a similar situation was handled in a different church. That helped me evaluate the situation and, hopefully, learn from it.

I think to say that people are “piling on” or “castigating” rather than simply “criticizing” for the sake of learning from this comes very close to impugning motives, and doesn’t seem to me to be very charitable. :)

[JG] Larry, this is exactly the way people are when they have been in an abusive authority relationship for years. I recently saw a church constitution from these circles which stated that there is no procedure for removing the pastor because the Scriptures give no basis for ever removing the pastor. I don’t know if Hammond’s constitution said that, but that has been the practice and mindset of that group. So it’s entirely believable, both from Glover’s evidence and from the way Hammond and others like them have worked, that they didn’t know what to do. If they didn’t know what to do about Hyles, it’s hardly surprising that they’d have a hard time with this.

Now, as to your last paragraph, I agree 100%, but there have been people on this thread who have been about them. And that is uncharitable.

JG - that’s a good point about the abusive authority relationship, and it’s why I said that I hope that this is the opportunity for them to really screw down and look at how and why they do the things they do. It looked promising at the beginning, and now doesn’t look as much so.

So far it looks like they’re saying all the right things at Hammond, but I’d feel more confident if the people they were getting to help with their situation weren’t consistently affiliated or friends of the church leadership. This isn’t the first time Hammond has gone through a situation where a church leader was expelled for sexual abuse, and it is a systemic problem ​at this point. In a situation like that, you get a total outsider to go through and evaluate everything from church policies to leadership development to reporting guidelines and lay it all out on the table so that it can get fixed; furthermore, if any of the deacons that were there for the other sexual misconduct cases were there and are governing over the church, then they ought to consider stepping down, because they’re just as much of a part of the problem (since these issues are recurring).

I feel badly for the people in the church…I really do. But I’m not going to sit here and say that they’re doing a good job either when (at best) they lied to their congregation about this. There’s nothing as hypocritical as pleading for them to trust their leadership while said leadership is lying to the congregation. Now if they come out and confess that to the church and ask for forgiveness, I’ll be the first in line to congratulate and encourage them - because this kind of mess needs to be done right and with integrity, not with half-hearted excuses for why they just couldn’t bring themselves to manage this the right way.

Castigating is a strong term to use against posts that are in disagreement with yours, but lying to a church congregation is also a huge problem that it seems like quite a few people on this board want to minimize or mitigate, and I fear for their churches and ministries if they really think that doing this is OK - what else are they OK with doing ‘for the good of the ministry’? Isn’t that the same thing that Hyles’ daughter talked about in her TEDx video - where Hyles handed out thousands of dollars with little or no accountability, kept a mistress on his payroll, and refused to report income for his taxes? Would someone on this site be OK with some of that as well? Don’t tell me that it’s OK to lie to a congregation about a critical church matter like this and then tell me that it’s no big deal because they had good motives. I’ve spent enough time in ministry to know that if you don’t have personal integrity in pastoring, you have no authority or power to declare anything to your congregation.

I’m not backing down on the lying claim because I don’t see any reason to not tell the church what is really going on, even if it’s as bland as “Dr. Schaap couldn’t be here this week” or “Dr. Schaap had to be terminated as a result of the violation of his contract with the church”. If Schaap had broken all his limbs and couldn’t legitimately make it to church, then that’s one thing. But if he had the flu, or a broken arm, or whatever and then that was presented as the sole reason for why he wasn’t there when they knew otherwise, then it’s deceit and it’s sin.

At some point, the Bible and it’s guidelines have to be brought to bear on this situation by the leadership. I’m not seeing it here other than firing Schaap, and that’s a no-brainer for any religious organization of any stripe, especially when it involves seducing 16 (or 17) year old girls.

You have provided assumptions not facts so if you are under the impression that no amount of conversation will convince me that medical leave could not be used in good conscience, since the conversation is based in assumed knowledge and assumed facts, yes I am not convinced and cannot be with conversation heavily based in assumptions and conclusions drawn from such.

Not sure what you think a “fact” is, but they fired him for misconduct. That is a fact—It is indisputably true. In fact, no one disputes that, not even you. So I am not sure why you are questioning whether what I am saying is fact. You agree with me, I think, don’t you.

The FBI is investigating because the sexual misconduct possibly involved a minor. That is fact, testified to by multiple news sources. Notice how I say possibly. I am not willing to declare that to be a fact because I don’t know the applicable laws in this matter. As the FBI said, if this women were 37, they wouldn’t be involved.

So there are no assumptions involved in that.

The only assumption I see being bandied about here is the assumption that there were medical reasons for his leave. No one has offered any proof of medical problems. Notice that the church identified no medical causes. It has simply been argued that in professional and business situations, it is appropriate. That’s not a good basis for doing it in the church, particularly when it is being said to mislead concerning the real reason.

If you don’t take the word of the church themselves, their attorney, media reports, and people in the church, then there is no conversation to be had with you.

Can someone just put up a poll and let people vote for whether they think the medical leave statement was right, wrong, or unable to assess? It seems like about every argument on all sides has been deployed, re-deployed, and used one more time with the hope that the third time is a charm.

And my guess is that both sides aren’t really that far apart from each other if this was an abstract question (iow, I don’t think anybody here is in favor of lying to a congregation). But, alas, it is not an abstract question and all parties come to it with perspectives already formed by past observations of Hammond and of one another. I wonder if the latter isn’t affecting this discussion more than the former.

BTW, I am joking about the poll. Please don’t do that.

[Dave Doran]

I wonder if the latter isn’t affecting this discussion more than the former.

Unfortunately, this appears to be highly perceptive.

Did you read the interview with Glover? He said they didn’t know what to do until Gibbs told them they had to fire him and report it.

Back for one comment after not keeping up here: My impression of that report was that because the alternative was to let him resign. I thought Gibb’s point was that the firing, rather than the resignation, was an important statement. Therefore, they needed to fire him rather than let him resign.