Truth isn't easy

Sometimes truth isn’t easy, and that’s sure true about clergy sex abuse.

The truth doesn’t always set you free. Sometimes it binds you tight as you try to learn to live with it.

Truth can shred all that you ever knew or believed. It can make a mockery of everything you ever held dear. It can rend asunder relationships, and it can pulverize the simple ability to live at peace.

Truth can be hard. It’s why so many people choose the softness of lies.

The lies comfort. When you believe them, they feel easier. They don’t challenge or confront.

People rationalize and justify. They rush past the real rawness of clergy sex abuse while spouting platitudes about “precious children” and “church autonomy.”

But their platitudes don’t protect anyone other than themselves. Their platitudes give them something to latch onto so that they don’t have to see the ugly reality of kids being molested and raped by clergy.

So who has more moral courage? The abuse survivors who step into the abyss and allow themselves to see the full horror of their own helplessness when they were groomed, molested and raped by a trusted minister? Or the Baptist leaders who shield themselves behind their safe wall of platitudes and who never confront the reality of clergy colleagues who rape kids?

People often wonder why abuse survivors don’t speak up sooner. But why do they wonder when they themselves lapse so easily into denial and minimization?

We did nothing wrong. We were raped because we were young, vulnerable, faith-filled and trusting. We were raped because the pastors held power and they used it against us.

Church and denominational leaders have a responsibility to know this truth and to confront it.

They can’t change what was done to us in the past. But if they will muster the courage to see the truth, they can change what will happen to others in the future.

But first, they must stop pushing away the truth with excuses, denials, minimizations, rationalizations and victim-blaming.

Those are all lies.

Debbie Kaufman reviews "This Little Light"

Debbie Kauman has posted a review of my book, This Little Light: Beyond a Baptist Preacher Predator and His Gang.

"What part of the book... should I write about?" begins Debbie. "It’s a book that when I finished reading the last page left me with a host of different thoughts and feelings. One chapter had me shocked at the number of victims in the Southern Baptist churches alone, one chapter had me angry that leaders in the Southern Baptist churches, Convention, literally turned their backs on Christa Brown as she tried to approach them, one chapter had me both angry and sad that Christa Brown was full of hope in approaching Southern Baptist leadership about clergy sexual abuse only to have her hopes dashed as excuses were made, doors shut on her, threatening letters were sent to her."

You can read the rest of Debbie's review on her blog. And since she calls it "part 1," I think she's not yet done. This is a woman with more to say.

Thanks, Debbie, for your strong voice!
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More from Debbie Kaufman:
Review of "This Little Light" - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
"Southern Baptist Convention and its affiliates guilty of spiritual abuse?"

Perhaps it's more about polity than race

In the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Mark Chaves and Diana Garland published a study titled “The Prevalence of Clergy Sexual Advances Toward Adults in Their Congregations.”

The study found that, among women who currently attend religious services at least monthly, 3.1 percent have been the object of a sexual advance by a clergyperson or religious leader in their own congregation since turning 18.

This 3.1 percent conclusion was widely publicized almost a year ago, but recently, there has been news about another finding within the study – a finding that was not previously publicized. The study reports what is described as “a race difference” in the incidence of abuse. (Chaves and Garland at 821)

Specifically, among women who currently attend church at least monthly, the prevalence of clergy sexual abuse was approximately three times greater for African-American women than for white women. In other words, the behavior of clergy sexual advances toward adult congregants “occurs somewhat more frequently in predominantly black congregations than in predominantly white congregations.” (Chaves and Garland at 823)

As reported by the Biblical Recorder, Diana Garland spoke publicly about this additional finding in a recent meeting of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. “She offered as possible explanation that black churches typically have smaller staffs who have heavier loads; a higher proportion of members are female and there are fewer eligible men in the church.”

Chaves and Garland rightly acknowledge that they “speculate” in their possible explanations for understanding the “race difference.” (Chaves and Garland at 823) So, since Chaves and Garland are putting forward speculation about this, I too will speculate to put forward another possible explanation.

I’m inclined to think that the difference may have more to do with polity than with race.

The study surveyed 3,559 people in 17 Christian and Jewish denominational bodies.

African-Americans are largely concentrated in denominations that have a congregationalist polity. The National Baptist Convention is the largest African-American denomination in the United States, and a great many African-Americans are in other Baptist denominations as well – all of which have congregationalist polity.

By contrast, the Anglos who were surveyed were more than likely splintered among a wider range of denominational bodies, including not only those with congregationalist polity, but also Catholics, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Methodists and others. In these other sorts of denominational bodies, there exists at least the possibility that abusive clergy may be reported to an office outside the local congregation. Not only can the victims themselves report the abusive clergy to someone outside the congregation, but so too can other ministers and church officials who may have seen the predatory clergyman’s patterns.

In these other sorts of denominational bodies, there exists at least the possibility that a regional review board might suspend the clergyman, defrock him, or discipline him.

However, most African-American respondents were probably more cohesively in denominations that claim their congregationalist polity precludes denominational oversight of clergy. For these people, the ONLY possibility for reporting abusive clergy is to report them to the local church.

So, because of the lack of any outside oversight, ministers in denominations with congregationalist polity can migrate more easily and thereby accumulate more victims. And since African-Americans are concentrated in denominations with congregationalist polity, this may be at least part of the explanation for the increased incidence of clergy abuse.

(Remember Baptist pastor Darrell Gilyard? He had 44 known adult victims before he was finally stopped by a criminal conviction. And that’s just the victims who revealed their abuse. Yet, despite reports within congregations, and despite reports to Baptist officials, and even despite the efforts of other ministers in churches where he worked, Gilyard was always able to move on.)

Thus, I can’t help but wonder whether the appearance of this “race difference” in the data may actually be a back-door sort of insight into the reality that the lack of any oversight outside the local congregation may be something in Baptist life that sets up the probability for a higher incidence of clergy abuse. If this is what the data is telling us, then it would likely be true for anglo-dominated Baptist denominations as well ... i.e., for denominations such as the Southern Baptist Convention.

Interestingly, Chaves and Garland themselves hint at this possibility, but then stop short. They raise the question of whether the "race difference" can be explained because, when it comes to “developing policies and procedures that adequately deal with such situations,” "predominantly white denominations and religious groups [have] been somewhat more likely to take these steps than predominantly black denominations and religious groups." (Chaves and Garland at 823) However, Chaves and Garland don’t make the link to the fact that most predominantly white denominations (Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran and Catholic) have developed review board procedures that afford outside oversight of their clergy while most predominantly black denominations have not.

Most predominantly black denominations are congregationalist in polity -- and largely Baptist -- and they use their polity as an excuse for a lack of clergy oversight. (Garland herself works for Baylor University, a Baptist-funded institution.)

Finally, let me reiterate my concern about the 3.1 percent conclusion. This is something I blogged about previously, and now that I have seen the study itself, my concern is even greater.

Though there are several places where the study makes plain that it concerned itself only with women who currently attend religious services at least once a month, the study’s title may give the misimpression of a broader conclusion. There are also statements within the study that proclaim it as having established “a national prevalence rate for sexual advances by clergy toward their adult parishioners.” (Chaves and Garland at 823) This is simply incorrect. It did no such thing.

The Chaves and Garland study does not reflect the women who were sexually abused by a religious leader and who completely stopped going to church. Nor does it reflect the women who were sexually abused by a religious leader and who now go to church only sporadically. Those women remain invisible and uncounted.

Yet, they are real. And based on the people I hear from, I expect that there are at least as many clergy-abused women who don’t go to church as those who do.

All of them need a safe place to which they can report clergy abuse, and that “safe place” will almost never be the church of the accused clergyman. Indeed, for Baptists to persist in telling clergy abuse survivors that they must report to the church of the accused clergyman is flat-out cruel. It is like telling bloody sheep to go the den of the wolf who savaged them.

Such a system will never work. Not only does it fail for the purpose of fostering clergy accountability, but it also inflicts horrible additional harm on the victims of clergy sex abuse. As Garland herself has stated: Victims were “hurt” by a religious leader, but they were “destroyed” by the congregations.
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Study published at Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion (2009) 48(4): 817-824.

Allegations should be assessed

A Southern Baptist missionary worked in Belize for four years, and on return to the United States, he became the director of a Baptist camp in North Carolina. His work put him in contact with a lot of kids.

A couple months ago, this former Southern Baptist missionary and camp director was found “dead of an apparent suicide.” At the time of his death, he was awaiting trial on child-sex charges. The charges involved three separate children.

What moral obligation do Southern Baptists now have toward the children who made the allegations in North Carolina?

What moral obligation do Southern Baptists now have toward the children who encountered this missionary in Belize?

The man’s death ended the government’s obligation to assess the truth of the allegations through the criminal justice process. But what about the faith community’s obligation?

And what about the kids?

If the allegations were true -- and police obviously believed they were -- then the man’s death will not spare the children from the burden of dealing with the nightmare of what they hold in their heads.

Is it enough for Baptists to simply say “We’ll pray for them”?

Sexual abuse in childhood carries a known correlation to a host of problems in adulthood, including alcohol addiction, drug addiction, post-traumatic stress disorder, chronic depression, and suicide. If the allegations of the three children are true, their lives could likely be made a great deal better if they obtained professional counseling sooner rather than later.

And if the allegations of the three North Carolina children are true, there is a significant likelihood that other children may have also been victimized, including children in Belize.

Shouldn’t the faith community carry a moral obligation to help with the healing for any who may have been wounded by this man on whom it placed a mantel of trust as a Southern Baptist minister?

Shouldn’t the faith community carry a moral obligation to responsibly assess the clergy abuse allegations, and to compassionately act on that assessment?

Other major faith groups have answered “yes” to those questions. But unlike other faith groups that have denominational processes to assess allegations involving deceased clergy and allegations beyond the statute of limitations, Southern Baptists have no such process.

In Baptistland, credible allegations are not assessed or acknowledged. So, now that the man’s death put an end to the criminal justice process, no alternative denominational process is available.

It is a cowardly faith community that can’t muster the moral courage to consider for itself the possible truth of clergy abuse allegations.

For a comparison, consider last week’s news of how Episcopal leaders responded to similar allegations.

A deceased Pennsylvania bishop and former priest was denominationally determined to have had four credible allegations of child sex abuse. According to the news account, two were abused as kids at an Episcopal summer camp and two were abused over a period of years.

In March 2010, immediately upon receiving a woman's report that she was abused as a kid by the deceased clergyman, Episcopal leaders consulted with licensed professionals outside the church organization who are experts in sexual abuse.

The current regional bishop, Sean Rowe, contacted the denomination’s Office for Pastoral Development, which had kept records on allegations against the priest, who had served in four different states. Through that office, Rowe learned of the three prior allegations, which in turn helped to substantiate the March 2010 report.

By comparison, for Baptists, there doesn't yet exist any denominational office that is even keeping records of clergy abuse allegations much less assessing them. Any Baptist pastor out there could have multiple allegations and no one would have any way of tracking them because no one is bothering to keep records.

After learning of the other allegations, Episcopal bishop Rowe offered an “abject apology” on behalf of the faith group and said: “We believe that these allegations are credible. We believe the stories.”

The Episcopal Church went public with the information about its deceased clergyman. On July 12, 2010, it made a denominational press release, and a letter was read aloud in 34 churches.

In the press release, Bishop Rowe said “The existence of four victims makes it possible that there are others, and we are bound as Christians to seek their healing.”

This is the very reality -- and moral imperative -- that Baptist leaders ignore.

Bishop Rowe publicly reached out to other possible victims of the deceased clergyman and urged them to come forward either publicly or confidentially.

Have you ever seen a Southern Baptist leader who publicly urged other possible clergy abuse victims to come forward and seek help?

Bishop Rowe had contacted the U.S. Episcopal Church’s highest leader, Katherine Jefforts Schori, who fully supported his decision to go public with the information about the abuse allegations.

Contrast this with the statement of Southern Baptists’ highest leader, Frank Page, who used a denominational press funded with offering plate dollars -- a press that would print virtually anything he wanted -- to publicly castigate those who speak out about clergy sex abuse.

Quite a contrast, eh?

Episcopal leaders aren't perfect. Though they removed the accused from priestly duties, and also removed him as a bishop, the prior allegations were not made public. They should have been. Nevertheless, compared to the long-continuing aggressively hostile do-nothingness of Baptist leaders, current Episcopal leaders wind up looking nearly like saints.

Baptists must come up to speed with what other major faith groups are already doing. Baptists must take up the hard work of denominationally assessing abuse allegations, of keeping records on abuse allegations, and of pro-actively reaching out to those who may have been abused by Baptist clergy.

They could start by assessing the abuse allegations of the North Carolina kids and by publicly reaching out to any others who may have been wounded in Belize.
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Prior postings on the Stephen Carter case:
"One reason abuse victims don't talk," 8/1/09
"Knowing him doesn't yield knowledge," 7/23/09
"Baptist camp director charged with sex crimes," 7/14/09

20/20 to air update on Matt Baker story

On Friday, July 9, ABC's 20/20 will air an update on the story of Matt Baker, the Baptist pastor who was convicted of murdering his wife.

According to investigators, Baker had also spent years living "a secret life as a sexual predator." Yet, despite multiple allegations of sexual assault and abuse, he was always able to move on through churches, schools and organizations affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

No one stopped him.

Not until he was put on trial for murder did people in the pews finally learn about the sexual abuse and assault allegations against him.

Now prosecutors say that "Matt Baker was a person who lived a double life and used his position as a minister for evil purposes."

Quoting Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, they point out that "The Devil can cite Scripture for his purpose."
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Prior postings on the Matt Baker case:
Outside Baptistland, there are consequences, 3/22/10
Lora's response to Baptist Bill, 2/17/10
Baptist Bill and the Courage of Lora, 2/8/10
Baptists threw kids a rattlesnake, 1/26/10
Complicity of Baptist leaders, 1/24/10
It shouldn't take a murder, 1/21/10
Guilty! Jury says pastor murdered wife, 1/20/10
Excerpts from the Matt Baker murder trial, 1/20/10
Baptist leaders silent at start of murder trial, 1/12/10
Baptist leaders must consider possible consequences, 6/12/09
Risk: Another lesson from the Matt Baker story, 12/31/08
Baptists at their best? 12/30/08
Why didn’t Baptists bust him? 2/23/08

Updates:"Was pastor's double life motive for murder?," ABC 20/20, 7/8/10
"Murdering minister's lover tells all," ABC 20/20, 7/9/10
"20/20 tells the story of Matt Baker," Debbie Kaufman's blog, 7/12/10

The Hell of a Baptist Preacher and his "Bud"

This story is excerpted from an Anchorage Daily News article written by Debra McKinney in 1992. It bears re-telling because it carries tragic lessons that still need learning in Baptistland.

The story of Diana Wade is “the story of a woman trying to heal after waking up one morning to find everything she's ever believed in, everything she's ever lived for, has been an enormous lie.”

“Her husband, George ‘Tom’ Wade Jr., was serving 12 years for his crimes. But she and her children had received a life sentence; they would live the rest of their lives without feeling whole. He had raped their souls . . . .

“Church officials knew the oldest daughter, Renee, was being abused long before Diana did. One of them, according to Renee's sworn testimony, told her to forgive her father and not tell anyone what he had done. It was three years before Renee got the courage to speak up again. By then, her father had started in on her two little sisters.”

“Diana came from a long line of Southern Baptists and was the daughter of a Baptist preacher . . . . The Wades had what appeared to be a wholesome life. Diana raised her children on ‘old-fashioned American values’ and three to five church services a week. . . .

"The family moved to southern Africa to work as missionaries for the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention. Hired as part of a husband-and-wife team, Diana was thrilled by the chance to live an exotic life overseas, doing work she considered her calling. But while she was living a fantasy, she was losing a daughter . . . .

"Renee was abused first, and longest. It started overseas. Between 11 and 16, her father's assaults accelerated to joint showers, finger penetration and oral sex. There were times, when Diana was away, he would visit her room almost nightly.

"Renee started acting up in school. . . . When Renee was 14, Diana decided to send her to a missionary school in Johannesburg, 700 miles away; maybe the change would get her back on track. But before too long, mission associate area director Marion ‘Bud’ Fray was on the phone telling her and Tom that their daughter was a bad influence on other kids . . . . He complained about her grades, her table manners, her sloppy dress and her constant claims of feeling sick. He called her a hypochondriac.

"But Renee was affected physically. She carried the secret like knotted barbed wire deep inside her . . . .

"When Renee found out her father was making a trip to Johannesburg, she begged her housemother not to let him stay in her home. When asked why, she told.

"According to Renee's sworn testimony, the housemother told her husband, who told Fray, who in turn confronted Tom.

"Fray testified that, in a tearful confession in his office, Tom admitted only to a little fondling, and that it happened a long time ago. Fray said he had no reason to doubt Tom. Fray referred to Renee as a ‘sexually deviant child’ and said he suspected she was lying. . . .

"Tom promised to tell Diana and get the family into counseling. . . .

"After the confrontation in Johannesburg, the Wades decided to return to Alaska on furlough, two years earlier than scheduled. The plan was to get Renee into counseling for her behavior . . . . the counseling never happened.

"Tom never did tell Diana.

"After three months in Anchorage, Tom moved his family to Anderson, a town of about 500 people 80 miles southwest of Fairbanks, to become pastor of the North Star Baptist Church . . . . He continued to pursue his oldest daughter. By then Renee was angry enough to refuse. When she did, he turned to the two younger girls . . . .

"Jennifer won't talk about her abuse; she gets up and leaves the room when the subject comes up. . . .

"But Tanya, the prostitute, talks more openly. ‘I went away from myself when he did it,’ Tanya remembers. Now, she says, she uses the same escape when she works as a prostitute. To this day she can't sleep without a light on, she says. . . .

"‘There was an undercurrent of knowing something was wrong, but denying it,’ Diana said. … ‘I allowed myself to be sucked into a subservient, submissive wifely role’ . . . .

"Renee left Anderson the day she graduated from high school and moved in with her grandparents in Anchorage. She was pregnant by her boyfriend.

"One afternoon, she and her mother's younger sister, Linda Travelli, were discussing Renee's hopes for a wedding. When Linda asked if Tom would perform the ceremony, Renee said he wouldn't even be invited.

"‘Why do you hate your father so much?’ Linda asked.

"But she already knew. Memories surfaced that had been buried for years. Linda remembered that Tom had abused her, too. At 11 and again at 16, she said. Renee told her story and Linda told hers. Together they decided it was time to let the rest of the family know the truth about this man . . . .

"Diana consulted her family, her attorney, her conscience and her God. She knew what she needed to do to protect her children; she asked the lawyer to call the police . . . .

"The Alaska State Troopers had arrested Tom Wade at the church parsonage, charging him with six felony counts of sexual abuse . . . .

"Diana filed for divorce immediately after her husband's arrest, and for several months she kept herself in isolation. The support she expected from friends and her church community didn't come . . . .

"The letters began arriving soon after word got back to Tom's family in Georgia: ‘It is absolutely unheard of for a person such as Tom to have been treated the way he has by his own family. . . . We will continue to do something to try to undo what you all have done. . . .’

"The letter from Tom's sister, Caroline Smith, damned Diana for turning on her husband . . . . ‘You allowed Satan to take control and until you allow God back into the situation, Satan will have the victory.’ "

"Some of the letters were directed to Diana's father, then-pastor of Anchorage's Grandview Baptist Church: ‘We have been told we must forgive you. We do. But do you even know the wrongs that you as the Biblical head of your household have allowed? Do you even realize how weak you appear to people all over this country. . . . You have allowed an immature minor to rule your family. What does God say? Forgive them for they know not what they do.’

"After a while, Diana stopped opening the letters; she just threw them in a box in a closet . . . .

"Although Jennifer won't discuss the extent of her abuse, her pain comes through in the letter she wrote to Judge Rene Gonzales urging him to give her father the stiffest sentence possible: ‘I hated every minute of my life….’

"Before pronouncing his sentence, Judge Gonzales said: ‘I've presided over quite a few cases of sexual abuse; in many respects yours is probably one of the most tragic. . . . As a result of the mishandling of your problem . . . . we have you before this court, not facing one count, one victim, but multiple counts and three victims. . . .’

"With Tom off in prison, Diana assumed the healing could begin. She didn't realize the family hadn't yet hit bottom.

"Renee's escape from an abusive life was short lived. Two days after her father's arrest, she miscarried her baby.

"After her child's death, she turned to alcohol and remained for several more years in a destructive relationship. Abuse she just thought that's what women got, she said. . . .

"Trey, the only boy in the family, was an ‘A’ student and president of his class in Anderson at the time of his father's arrest. Two years later, he had dropped out of high school. It became almost impossible for his mother to get him out of bed.

"Diana had Trey committed to … the state mental hospital, twice. At 17, he entered a treatment program for drug and alcohol addictions . . . .

"Today he's sober, living in a friend's garage and about as far from a Baptist as he can get . . . . The way Trey explains it, he found his father's secret so humiliating, such a betrayal, that he wanted to reconstruct every atom of his body. . . .

"Tanya [was] the one who sank the furthest … For days after his arrest she insisted he never touched her.

"After he went to prison, her feelings… gelled as rage . . . . She locked herself in a bathroom once and threatened to carve herself up with a knife . . . .

"Diana, who had moved with the kids to Anchorage, tried joint counseling. But Tanya would just curl up into the fetal position and refuse to talk.

"By the seventh grade, Tanya was running away, drinking, using drugs and hanging out with street kids. Pregnant at 15, she gave up her baby for adoption.

"Tanya tried to kill herself with pain pills. She lay in the intensive care unit… with tubes up her nose and all four limbs tied down as she thrashed about. For 24 hours, doctors didn't know if she'd live.

"By 17, Tanya had been in eight institutions, shelters and treatment programs . . . . She disappeared into the streets of Anchorage."
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You can read the rest of the Anchorage Daily News story here.

Nincompoop nonsense

A women’s softball team wanted to get in more games. So they registered and paid their fee to compete in the Bellevue Baptist Church league. Bellevue banned them.

Andy Beal, the church’s “sports outreach” minister “had received information” that the team’s coach was gay. So he contacted her for a meeting and inquired about it. The coach, Jana Jacobson, “acknowledged she is gay.”

Bellevue’s “recreation minister,” Scotty Shows, then told Jacobson that her team couldn’t play.

“The team’s participation would send a message to Bellevue members that the church condoned her lifestyle.” That’s what Jacobsen was reportedly told.

About 10 days ago, when I first saw this story, I thought, “What nincompoops.” But it didn’t seem worthy of comment. After all, if I wrote a blog posting every time some Baptist minister did something nonsensical, hypocritical, and hateful, I’d never even manage to get the laundry done.

So, despite the obvious fodder for “love thy neighbor” sarcasm, I let it go.

Then I saw this more recent article with the remarks of Bellevue’s senior pastor, Steve Gaines . . . and I just couldn’t bite my tongue any longer.

The senior pastor of this Memphis megachurch justified the decision to ban the coach’s softball team by saying that those in leadership positions influence others. He told Bellevue church members that the disqualification of the softball team would have been handled differently if it had involved something in the coach’s past. But “you’re engaged in it right now,” sermonized Gaines.

To appreciate the full effect of Gaines’ remarks, you have to put them in context with Gaines’ own conduct. So let me bring you up to speed. Gaines is a Southern Baptist pastor who turned a blind eye and kept quiet when one of his staff ministers, Paul Williams, admitted to having repeatedly molested an adolescent boy. But minister Williams claimed it was in the past. So pastor Gaines did nothing.

In fact, worse than doing nothing, Gaines kept Williams in a position of trust and leadership as a minister in the church. He even allowed Williams to serve as a counselor to people who said they had been molested as children.

Did you get that? Gaines allowed one of his staff ministers, who was an admitted pedophile, to sit in his church office and use his ministerial position to listen to the most personal and painful stories of people molested as children. Pretty sick stuff, eh?

But senior pastor Steve Gaines apparently figured it was okay since minister Williams said his conduct was in the past. So Gaines kept it quiet and kept the admitted child molester on his ministerial staff.

All of this is public information. Gaines’ conduct came to light two-and-a-half years ago.

But despite Gaines’ keep-it-quiet response to a clergy child molester, Bellevue Baptist still retains Gaines in a leadership position. This is continuing conduct by the church itself -- conduct that they’re “engaged in right now.”

By retaining Steve Gaines, Bellevue Baptist sends a constant message that, in fact, it is no big deal for a pastor to keep quiet about a minister’s sexual abuse of a kid.

In many other organizations, a failure and cover-up as reckless and contrived as that of Steve Gaines would carry the consequence of a required resignation. New leadership would be demanded. But not at the Baptist megachurch of Bellevue. And not when the leader is a purported anointed one.

A pastor’s cover-up of clergy child molestation should require serious consequences, but the leadership lesson of Bellevue is that it doesn’t.

That’s the style of leadership that pastor Steve Gaines has demonstrated.

It’s bad enough that Bellevue would purport to stake moral high ground with its petty ouster of a women’s softball team.

But it becomes flat-out ludicrous when you realize that Bellevue’s own leader holds all the moral ground of a mosquito-infested swampland.
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Photo by USA Today.
See also: "Ousting gay coach necessary, Bellevue pastor says," Commercial Appeal, 6/23/10

Danni Moss: Farewell

Danni Moss
April 27, 1964 - June 13, 2010

She was a warrior for truth and a voice of hope.

She was a woman of wisdom and courage.

She was a light that pierced the darkness.

She will be sorely missed.

During a Southern Baptist Convention

Another Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting came and went this week, and Southern Baptists still remain the all-time-biggest do-nothing denomination on clergy sex abuse. Nothing has changed.

But in my inbox today, there is still another reminder of how big the problem is. With the permission of Jay Thompson, I’m reprinting his email below.

“Dear Christa,

I am nearly finished reading your book. I am so thankful my girlfriend found it online and bought it for me. It is chilling to read your story as it mirrors my own save the obvious gender differences. Now 52, I was forcibly sodomized DURING the Southern Baptist Convention back in the mid 70s (I was 16) at a Best Western Motel in Oak Cliff, TX. I was abused from ages 15-18. I was an "evangelist" with a "maturity well beyond my years" (as was written about me then), and my life has never been solidly back on track, though I am still trying.

Oh, the truths I could express... many of the Baptist leaders mentioned in your book I have met and "sat under," awed by "their wisdom." Makes me want to puke. Paige Patterson is as self-absorbed as was my perpetrator who took me to hear him!

Thanks again for your book.

Respectfully,
Jay Thompson”

Tragically, but not surprisingly, Jay also said this in a subsequent email:

“The perpetrator is currently the minister of a church in the same town in which these acts occurred (just up the street from the church he had been pastor of when using ‘God language’ to violate me.”

I know many of you who follow this blog will read Jay’s words and weep. But among Baptists, who will actually give a hoot? Who will actually do anything to help Jay. . . or the countless others who have been abused by Baptist clergy?

We’ve already seen what would likely happen if Jay tried to report this preacher-predator to the statewide Baptist General Convention of Texas. They don’t even have any system for receiving abuse reports from individuals, and so they wouldn’t do diddly-squat.

And though the BGCT has a system to provide counseling, or counseling stipends, for Baptist clergy who commit what they so euphemistically refer to as “sexual misconduct,” they have no system whatsoever for providing counseling to those who have been the most grievously wounded –- those who have survived Baptist clergy sex abuse.

On a good day, leaders at the BGCT might choose to simply ignore Jay, but it’s also possible that the BGCT would send out its own longtime attorney to “help” the church of the accused perpetrator. And the way the attorney “helps” is by threatening to sue the victim.

BGCT honchos know that this is what the attorney does – threatening people who try to report abuse – but they send him out to “help” anyway. It usually works to re-silence the victims – but it sure as heck doesn’t work to keep any other kids any safer.

Or maybe, now that Sonny Spurger is gone from the BGCT, Jay might simply encounter the dangerously naive Emily Prevost, who would likely tell Jay to report the preacher’s abuse to the preacher’s current church. It’s the standard line of idiocy in Baptistland, and it's the line Prevost has used in the past. It’s like telling bloody sheep to go back to the den of the wolf who savaged them. But hey... I’m sure Emily Prevost would say it with a smile. She would pray for Jay.

So then imagine that Jay tries to report this preacher-predator to honchos in Nashville. He’d likely be met with some of that Ephesians 4 sermonizing on forgiveness that other abuse survivors have gotten from Executive Committee members. Or maybe he’d just get some of that insipid God-bless-we’ll-pray-for-you sort of talk. Or if Jay actually tried to talk to top-dog honcho Frank Page, Jay might get told how “mean-spirited” he is for pursuing this or maybe he’d get told that he’s “nothing more than an opportunistic person.”

Those honcho guys in Nashville sure know how to be good shepherds, don’t they? (Please pardon my sarcasm.)

I can imagine all sorts of possibilities for what Jay would likely encounter if he stepped into the Kafkaesque hell of trying to report the preacher-predator to Baptist officials. None of the possibilities are good.

The one thing we can know almost for certain is that no one in Baptistland will actually help Jay.

Unlike other major faith groups, Southern Baptists have no denominational system for accepting or assessing survivors’ reports of clergy sex abuse. They have no system for warning people in the pews. They don’t even have any system of record-keeping on reports of clergy sex abuse.

It’s possible that someone else may have already attempted to report the very same preacher-predator, but since no one is keeping records, how would anyone know?

In Baptistland, a preacher can have multiple reports of abuse, and he’ll simply be allowed to move on, with few in the pews being told.

That’s how it works in Baptistland. No records - no trace - no trouble.

Except that it sure wreaks long-lasting trouble in the lives of kids.

As Jay so plainly stated – and his words speak for many – “My life has never been solidly back on track, though I am still trying.”

Keep trying, Jay. Keep trying. Though it’s certainly true that there is virtually no one in this power-purposed, do-nothing denomination who will actually give a hoot, there are a great many of us other clergy-abuse-survivor-lepers who are pulling for you. And in the very act of allowing your email to be printed, you yourself have already pulled others along -- others who will see your words and take courage and will begin the slow, quiet process of struggling toward the water's surface.

Keep trying.

Frank Page: another side

In a closed session on June 14, the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee elected former SBC president Frank Page as its next president and CEO.

This is a powerful position that was once described as “the most important in all of Christendom.”

Though that description may be a bit lofty, there is no doubt that the president and CEO of the SBC’s Executive Committee holds a very important position. Norman Jameson, editor of the Biblical Recorder and longtime follower of Baptist life, explains it this way: “The Executive Committee functions as the Southern Baptist Convention between annual sessions of the SBC.”

What this means is that, for about 363 days a year, the Executive Committee is where the power resides for the largest Protestant denomination in the land.

So what sort of man did Southern Baptists place in such a powerful position?

Jameson describes Frank Page as “a man of integrity, vision, achievement and leadership.”

That’s the Frank Page whom Norman Jameson has apparently encountered, and no doubt there are many more in Baptist life who share a similar view.

But clergy abuse survivors have seen another side.

Frank Page is the man who publicly castigated clergy rape and molestation survivors as being “nothing more than opportunistic persons.”

It would be bad enough if it were just some off-the-cuff remark. But it was more than that.

Frank Page said those hateful words in his official role as president of the Southern Baptist Convention, and he published them in a news journal funded by offering plate dollars – the Florida Baptist Witness. It was a news journal in which he could write whatever he wanted . . . and look what he chose to write.

Just after Page’s words made print, I remember hearing from one Baptist clergy abuse survivor who told me that she could scarcely breathe upon seeing them. That’s how hurtful Page’s words were.

With such caustic rhetoric, Frank Page helped to foster a climate of hostility and victim-blaming toward Baptist clergy abuse survivors. Many have felt the brunt of it.

Yet, Page has never apologized.

Wouldn’t “a man of integrity” realize the horrible hurt in his words and offer up some sort of apology?

Wouldn’t you expect to hear some expression of remorse, particularly from one who is deemed to be such a high religious leader?

A journalist like Helen Thomas loses her job after a callous public comment. But a high Southern Baptist leader gets promoted.

And though Jameson describes Page as a man of “leadership,” I can’t help but wonder why that “leadership” was so lackluster when it came to addressing clergy sex abuse.

This is the man who, in his prior role as SBC president, repeatedly minimized the problem by saying that there have been only “several reported cases” of clergy sex abuse in Baptist churches . . . when in reality there have been hundreds.

Wouldn’t a true leader have at least acknowledged the truth about the extent of the problem?

This is the man who, when more cases started coming to light, lashed out at the media, instead of doing something about the problem.

Wouldn’t a true leader have implemented action rather than blindly blaming others?

This is the man who was told by a 20/20 correspondent that the SBC’s ministerial registry showed convicted sex offenders as apparent “preachers in good standing.” Yet, weeks later, when the 20/20 show actually aired, the names were still on the registry. Frank Page had done nothing about the problem even when he was told about it directly to his face.

Wouldn’t a true leader have done something?

But in all of this, here’s the part I struggle with the most. Why aren’t there a great many other Southern Baptist leaders who will hold Frank Page accountable for his callousness and do-nothingness toward clergy abuse survivors?

Yet, rather than holding him accountable, other Southern Baptist leaders promote him.

It’s as though we’re all just supposed to pretend that Frank Page never said such ugly things.

It’s as though we’re all just supposed to pretend that it never happened.

But it did happen.

Frank Page, the new president and CEO of the SBC’s Executive Committee, publicly castigated clergy abuse survivors as “nothing more than opportunistic persons.”

It’s a shame that so many other Southern Baptist leaders are so willing to turn a blind eye to such cold-hearted callousness from the mouth of one of their own high religious leaders.

But of course, that’s a big part of the problem in Baptistland. Cronies don’t hold cronies accountable.
_________________________


Frank Page's 4/17/2007 column in the Florida Baptist Witness.



Updates:
6/17/10: Baptist Planet, "More of the SBC same on clerical sexual predators."
5/27/14: ABP News, "SBC official stands by criticism of SNAP."

How long until Southern Baptists stop abusive clergy?

Clergy abuse survivors have been asking Southern Baptists for several years to implement denominational safeguards against clergy child molesters. Southern Baptists have refused.

The requests are nothing radical. We asked for the sorts of safeguards that already exist in other major faith groups. We asked that the denomination provide a safe place for the reporting of clergy abuse, a denominational panel for responsibly assessing abuse reports, and an effective means, such as a database, of assuring that assessment information reaches people in the pews.

In 2008, TIME magazine ranked Southern Baptists' rejection of a sex-offender database as one of the top 10 underreported stories of the year.

Now here we are in 2010, and Southern Baptists are still sitting on the sidelines when it comes to protecting kids against clergy sex abuse.

A faith group that so devalues its children must change. So we know where this is going. Change is inevitable.

Sooner or later, Southern Baptists will learn the lesson that pious preaching won't protect kids against clergy predators. What we don't know is how long the lesson will take.

Maybe it will take 10, 20 or 50 years. But we know how this ends. Southern Baptists will come up to speed with what other faith groups are doing to assure that predators cannot easily hide among their clergy ranks.

It is inevitable. A future is coming when children in Baptist churches will be a great deal safer than they are now. A future is coming when those who report clergy abuse will be met with ministry and outreach rather than minimization and denial. A future is coming when people in the pews will be able to find out about credibly accused clergy so that predators cannot so easily church-hop.

When that future arrives, we will all look back with a vague sense of wonder at why it took so long.

But there is always someone who fights a rear-guard action to preserve the status quo. And it doesn't matter how irrational or dysfunctional that status quo may be.

More and more, when it comes to dealing with clergy sex abuse, it looks as though the rear guard will be Southern Baptists.

While other major faith groups have recognized the need for clergy accountability mechanisms, Southern Baptists persist in denominational do-nothingness. Worst of all, they claim religious principle as the reason. Confronted with people trying to report predatory clergy, Baptist leaders retreat behind the Pharisee-like legalism of their autonomous polity as an excuse for why they are powerless.

It might be comical if it weren't so dangerous.

But someday, even this most recalcitrant of faith groups will see the light and take action. It is inevitable.

Meanwhile, the rear guard is convening in Orlando this week. How many more conventions will it take before Southern Baptists provide their kids with the same sorts of safeguards as kids in Presbyterian, Lutheran, Methodist and Episcopal churches?

Most clergy child molesters have multiple victims, and people who have been victimized by clergy are often capable of speaking about it only after many years have passed. This means that the best way to prevent clergy sex abuse in the future is to institutionally listen to those who are trying to tell about abuse in the past. This is what Southern Baptists refuse to do.

Many Baptist leaders have told me to be patient. They say change will happen with time.

It is a seductive notion, this belief that change will happen on its own with the passage of time. If people think that time alone will take care of things, then they don't have to feel as much personal responsibility for taking action.

But any comfort Baptists may gain from believing that time will take care of things is a comfort that must be tempered by the recognition of how many more kids will be molested by clergy while time marches on.

We know where this is going. But that does not alter the fact that Southern Baptists should have been there long ago but for their own ignorance, intransigence, arrogance and fear.

There is no honor for Southern Baptists in being the rear guard in the battle for clergy accountability. There is only more suffering for "the least of these."
__________________________

Thanks to Ethics Daily for publishing this column of mine, written on the eve of the Southern Baptist Convention’s June 2010 annual meeting in Orlando.

Basically no one

A reader recently answered the question of my prior posting: “Among Baptists, who will give a hoot?”

The answer: “Basically no one.”

Of course, he didn’t realize he was answering the “who gives a hoot” question. He thought he was explaining Baptist polity to me. His answer came in a comment under one of my postings about the murder trial of Southern Baptist preacher Matt Baker.

Remember Matt Baker? He’s the Baptist preacher who, despite multiple reports of sexual assault and abuse, continued to move through a slew of schools, churches and organizations affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas. No one stopped him. There was “basically no one” who cared enough to track the allegations, assess the allegations, or inform others about the allegations.

Ultimately, it took a murder for people to find out about the long history of abuse allegations against this Baptist pastor. At the start of the murder trial, prosecutors said they had evidence of 13 abuse and assault reports, including 4 that involved minors, and investigators said Baker had spent years leading “a secret life as a sexual predator.”

My take on the story was that it shouldn’t take a murder for people in Baptist pews to find out that a Baptist pastor has multiple allegations of abuse and assault. It seemed particularly tragic to me because almost all of Baker’s jobs were in schools, churches and organizations affiliated with the exact same umbrella organization -- the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

Wouldn’t you think that there should have been some way for this Baptist umbrella organization to monitor abuse allegations and inform people?

That’s what I thought.

But the reader who made the “basically no one” comment thought otherwise. Here’s what he wrote:

“Obviously this is a tragedy, however it's extremely near sighted to blame the BGCT for the work of one individual. Perhaps a better understanding of Baptist polity would bring light to the situation. The BGCT isn't an episcopal organization- there is no mechanism in place, no chain of command to deal with such instances. . . . we Baptist's are no monarchy. Who exactly was this guy reporting to? In an organization that runs from a system of autonomy the answer is: basically no one.”

[Incidentally, as you might note, he made this anonymous comment 4 months after the posting. Baptistland seems to have a lot of these lily-livered poltroons who try to get the last word by skulking onto the blog with anonymous late comments. . . but I digress.]

So this guy thinks I’m “near-sighted” because, if only I understood Baptist polity, I’d realize that there is “basically no one” who can rein in these church-hopping preacher-predators or who can even warn people in the pews.

But he’s wrong in thinking our difference turns on an understanding of polity. Our difference turns on perspective.

I see quite clearly that there is “basically no one” in Baptistland who will do diddly-squat about reports of clergy sex abuse. The difference in our points of view is that he seems to think this is something for Baptists to be proud of, while I think it’s a travesty.

It’s as though Baptist preachers just thumb their nose and say “nanny nanny boo boo… we’re accountable to no one… it’s our religion.”

Isn’t that the worst of it? They use religion as an excuse for irresponsibility.

And they do it when what’s at stake is the safety of kids.

Personally, I expect that most parents in Baptist pews would probably place far greater value on protecting their kids against predators than on protecting the parameters of Baptist polity in precisely the manner that Baptist leaders proclaim it.

After all, every time a Baptist official turns his back on a clergy abuse report by pontificating about polity, he is increasing the probability that another kid will be sexually abused. That’s the near-sighted trade-off that Baptist officials are making.

They are choosing the protection of their own self-created, radicalized polity at the cost of kids’ safety against predators.

There is nothing theoretical about this. In a face-to-face conversation, a Texas Baptist official bluntly explained to me that “for Baptists, what we lose in safety, we gain in freedom.”

He obviously thought this was a fair trade-off. I don’t. I think it’s reckless and callous.

Besides, there is nothing contrary to Baptist polity in the notion of denominationally providing churches with information. It is only for Baptist officials’ own pontificated polity that it winds up being a problem . . . not for authentic Baptist polity.

In fact, for authentic Baptist polity, it would actually strengthen the power and freedom of local churches if they could have ready access to information about ministers.

The secrecy in Baptistland serves no one… except those with something to hide.