Haiti: Charged missionary was from church with recent child predator

One of the missionaries charged in Haiti with child kidnapping was from a Texas church that allegedly covered up for a child predator.

Jim Allen, from Paramount Baptist Church in Amarillo, Texas, is one of the ten missionaries charged by the Haitian government with child kidnapping and criminal association. The other 9 mission team members are from two Southern Baptist churches in Idaho and a Baptist church in Kansas.

In a statement on the Paramount Baptist Church website, senior pastor Gil Lain cited Matthew 25:40 and said that the mission team’s goal was simply to “take care of the least of these.”

But Paramount Baptist Church had recent problems with taking care of “the least of these” even within its own congregation. (That’s Paramount in the photo.)

A 2007 lawsuit alleged that Paramount Baptist Church “was warned that a Sunday School teacher and paid childcare worker was a known pedophile, and yet did nothing to keep kids safe.”

As reported in EthicsDaily, parents bringing the suit alleged that Patrick Farmer molested and photographed their two young daughters numerous times. Farmer, who had also been a spokesman for Paramount’s Vacation Bible School, ultimately pled guilty to four counts of sexual indecency with children.

The parents said that, for years, numerous other parents and teachers “had complained to church leaders that Farmer engaged in inappropriate sexual touching of children on the church premises.” They said that, on at least one occasion, “parents who complained about Farmer were asked to leave the church.”

“Even after the parents reported their concerns to church leaders,” the lawsuit said, “the church failed to prevent Farmer from working with children.”

“Between the time they reported Farmer’s behavior to the church and his indictment by a grand jury… the parents claim Farmers abused a third victim.” All three of the children were under the age of 10.

Farmer worked as a local school teacher for one year, and according to the lawsuit, when the church contacted the school district prior to hiring Farmer, the school district “recommended against employing him in a position involving children.”

Allegedly, “the church ignored the warning from the school district… just as it ignored previous warnings from parents.”

The victims’ lawyer, Stan Broome, insisted that the church knew about Farmer’s sexual behavior and covered it up. “Paramount Baptist Church lied about what was going on. . . ,” said Broome.

According to the lawsuit, Paramount Baptist Church “did not take even the most basic of precautions to shield children from being molested by Farmer. Instead of requiring multiple adults to be present for children’s activities…the church regularly allowed Farmer to teach Sunday school classes in which he was the only adult present.”

So that’s the kind of history that Paramount Baptist Church has when it comes to taking care of “the least of these.”

Now let me emphasize . . . None of this means that Paramount’s member, Jim Allen, had any intention of kidnapping kids in Haiti. Personally, I doubt that he did.

I don’t know what any of the mission team members actually intended. What I suspect is that the mission team was grossly incompetent, dreadfully misguided, and possibly evangelically arrogant.

However, while Paramount's history with a pedophile does not speak one way or the other as to the specific charges against the mission team in Haiti, it does help to demonstrate why the Haitian government has good reason for being concerned and for enforcing its laws -- laws that were designed to safeguard “the least of these.”

Paramount’s history helps to demonstrate that, just because people call themselves “Baptist” is no reason why the Haitian government should automatically assume that they will be people who genuinely look after “the least of these.”

After all, Southern Baptists haven’t done a very good job of looking after “the least of these” even within their own faith group.

Morris Chapman, president of the Southern Baptist executive committee, complained that the Haitian government and international community immediately interpreted the missionaries’ actions “in the worst light possible.” Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, I couldn’t help but think that Morris Chapman might do better if he would address himself to how Southern Baptists interpreted the Haitian government’s action.

Clint Henry, senior pastor of the largest Southern Baptist church in Idaho and the church that sponsored many of the missionaries, immediately responded by denouncing the charges as “accusations of Satan.” And Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics Commission, pointed out that churches give “hundreds of thousands of dollars to relief efforts” and that the Haitian government’s response was “outrageous.”

With talk like that, it’s hard to say that Baptist leaders themselves did anything other than view things “in the worst light possible,” isn’t it? If Southern Baptist leaders want others to interpret things in a better light, they should do so themselves.

And if Southern Baptist leaders want others to take them seriously when they say they care about “the least of these,” then they need to put words into action by implementing denominational safeguards to better protect against the child predators in their own ranks.