Abuse at First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana (and elsewhere)

Southern Baptist Ed Stetzer is right to assert that Jack Schapp was fired as pastor of First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana, over sexual "abuse" of a teenage girl Not "adultery."

Technically, Schapp was fired for adultery and the FBI is investigating whether the girl was the legal age of consent, not just in Illinois but also Indiana. But the problem is predatory abuse of power, by the pastor.

The power differential between Schapp and his victim made consent effectively and in some states legally impossible:

... the church environment is remarkably well-suited to the needs of predators, who carry out a form of rape. Dr. Gary Schoener, Executive Director of the Walk-In Counseling Center in Minneapolis which serves both offenders and victims of clergy sexual abuse, told the St. Petersberg Times that “17 states see even adult relationships with priests as a type of statutory rape. The victim can’t possibly consent because the power relationship so clouds the issue.”

More

• Clerical sexual offenders are worse
• Profile & techniques of clerical predators
• Why predatory clergy flourish
• Clerical sexual abuse of adults is commonplace
• Religious sex offenders are the worst

Stetzer focuses on the age difference and comes to the same conclusion:

A 54-year old pastor taking advantage, both sexually and emotionally, of a 16-year old girl goes far beyond the bounds of desecrating the marital bed and making immoral choices. This is a prime example of abusing the power and trust of an office. It was part of the problem at Penn State, and it is the problem in this situation.

Stetzer urges pastors to "speak up" about the abuse and in the comments Christa Brown takes him to task for saying and doing too little himself:

Southern Baptists have also had way too many child-sex-abuse and cover-up scandals among their clergy. The Southern Baptist track record is no better than the Independent Fundamental Baptists. There is a volunteer-compiled list of Southern Baptist scandals at StopBaptistPredators.

To Ed Stetzer and other Southern Baptists, I say this: Speaking up would be a start, but words are not nearly enough. You must implement cooperative denomination-wide clergy accountability systems similar to those that exist in other major faith groups and stop using “local church autonomy” as an excuse for denominational do-nothingness. Clean up your own faith group.

Stetzer is right (and Brown is right to in effect push it back at him) when he writes:

Those who justify enable more such scandals and endanger more children.

He cannot by that standard justify his failure to speak with equal force to the well-known Southern Baptist failure to protect children and others from abuse by pastors and church staff. It's an enduring national scandal. In 2008 the Southern Baptist Convention's refusal to create a central database of staff and clergy who have been either convicted of or indicted on charges of molesting minors, was one of Time magazine's top ten underreported news stories of the year. They use church autonomy as an excuse for inaction, and the number of lives avoidably blighted by abuse grows and grows.

NPR: Church tackles sex abuse by Eddie Long and others

Garland's cross-denominational study

Why predatory clergy flourish

Sexually abusive pastor profile and technique

On NPR, Baylor's Diana Garland, co-author of "How Sexual Misconduct Happens," and Monsignor Stephen Rossetti, clinical associate professor of Pastoral Studies at Catholic University, address how church tackles sex abuse by clergy.

They address both the problem in general and the Eddie Long case.

Garland's study found that the problem cuts across denominational lines.

Did NAMB president give short shrift to the welfare of his church's children?

Refuse to testify and fail to warn your church's members about a sexual predator in their midst.

That was newly elected Southern Baptist North American Mission Board President Kevin Ezell's reaction when in 2004 as pastor of Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky, he learned that a volunteer at his church who had also taught at a school operated by his church [see addendum] was accused of sex crimes. And Ezell was himself subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury.

Christa Brown at Stop Baptist Predators writes:

When prosecutors subpoenaed pastor Ezell to testify before the grand jury, Ezell invoked the clergy-penitent privilege. In other words, Ezell claimed that he couldn’t be required to testify under oath (i.e., under penalty of perjury) because he claimed that, as pastor, he was entitled to keep secret whatever Bill Maggard had told him.

...

Furthermore, as reported in the Courier-Journal, “Ezell said he did not expect the church would announce Maggard's arrest to the congregation.”

In many states, Ezell would not have had recourse to clergy-penitent privilege and could have had difficulties himself if found to have failed to report "known or suspected instances of child abuse or neglect." The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Child Welfare Information Gateway explains:

In approximately 18 States and Puerto Rico, any person who suspects child abuse or neglect is required to report.3 This inclusive language appears to include clergy but may be interpreted otherwise.

...

As a doctrine of some faiths, clergy must maintain the confidentiality of pastoral communications. Mandatory reporting statutes in some States specify the circumstances under which a communication is "privileged" or allowed to remain confidential. Privileged communications may be exempt from the requirement to report suspected abuse or neglect. The privilege of maintaining this confidentiality under State law must be provided by statute. Most States do provide the privilege, typically in rules of evidence or civil procedure.4 If the issue of privilege is not addressed in the reporting laws, it does not mean that privilege is not granted; it may be granted in other parts of State statutes.

This privilege, however, is not absolute. While clergy-penitent privilege is frequently recognized within the reporting laws, it is typically interpreted narrowly in the context of child abuse or neglect. The circumstances under which it is allowed vary from State to State, and in some States it is denied altogether. For example, among the States that list clergy as mandated reporters, New Hampshire and West Virginia deny the clergy-penitent privilege in cases of child abuse or neglect. Four of the States that enumerate "any person" as a mandated reporter (North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, and Texas) also deny clergy-penitent privilege in child abuse cases.

States which require reporting without regard to clergy-penitent privilege simply place the welfare of vulnerable children first.

Ezell could have put the children first but, judging from available accounts, simply did not do that.

Addendum:

On March 19, 2004, the Associated Press reported:

Maggard, 56, was indicted in December on two counts of first-degree sexual abuse. He is accused of molesting seven boys between 1973 and 1975, when he was a fifth-grade teacher at Schaffner Elementary School.

The new indictment says Maggard molested the boys either at school or at his home.

Maggard was initially indicted Dec. 17. He pleaded not guilty at his Dec. 22 arraignment and later posted a $5,000 bond.

Maggard taught 13 years in Jefferson County Public Schools and later worked at a school operated by Highview Baptist Church, where he also volunteered in Sunday school and choir programs until recently.

The 6,000-member church is one of the state's largest Southern Baptist congregations.

On August 3, 2004, WLKY.com reported:

A former teacher pleaded guilty to sexually abusing seven boys in the 1970s and early 1980s.

The deal calls for Bill Maggard Jr., 57, to spend up to 10 years in prison, WLKY NewsChannel 32 reported Tuesday.

. . .

Maggard taught for 13 years in Jefferson County Public Schools, and later worked at a school operated by Highview Baptist Church.

The church has said it has no claims of abuse

At sentencing time, Maggard made the kind of plea for clemency that is eerily predictable for church-going predators. On October 01, 2004, Jason Riley of the Louisville Courier-Journal wrote:

"I'm sorry for my actions many years ago," he said during his sentencing hearing in Jefferson Circuit Court, adding that he sought treatment in the early 1980s and would be willing to do so again. "I faced my sin, sought forgiveness, sought help and God kept His promise."

What of his victims? The burden of warning them appears to have fallen to the press and an alert member of Ezell's congregation. As Christa explains:

And thank God for a member of Ezell’s congregation who saw what was happening in her church and worried about the safety of the kids. As reported in the Courier-Journal, a member of Highview knew about prior allegations of abuse by Maggard, and she was concerned about his being in contact with children in the church. So, she contacted the victims and encouraged them to go to police.

Did Maggard seek out his victims and provide treatment to them?

Were those seeking clemency for Maggard at least similarly concerned about finding and helping all of his victims? You know: The suffering children.

How 'forgiveness' becomes cover-up for church sexual predators

Christa Brown calls our attention to a story of a Southern Baptist church's negligence in dealing with a preacher's sexual abuse of his adopted children. She quotes from the Anchorage Daily News:

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.

You see in that horror why sexual predators regard churches as attractive environments.

For example, one predator told a researcher [.pdf]:

I considered church people easy to fool...they have a trust that comes from being Christians...They tend to be better folks all around. And they seem to want to believe in the good that exists in all people ... I think they want to believe in people. And because of that, you can easily convince, with or without convincing words.

Thus forgiveness becomes cover-up, with hellish results for victims.

Southern Baptist autonomy (not for women in the pulpit: for predators)

Put a woman in the pulpit and the ax of Southern Baptist discipline falls. The Georgia Baptist Convention is preparing to disfellowship Druid Hills Baptist Church in Atlanta because the Reverend Mimi Walker is a co-pastor there. While critics write the South Carolina Baptist Courier to abjure Eau Claire Baptist Church for calling Kelly Dickerson Strum to be co-pastor, one suggesting that church discipline is in order.

Yet amid the recurrent revelations of Southern Baptist pastoral sexual abuse, again documented by Christa Brown, no equivalent scripture-laced outpourings about applying the force of denominational discipline to the protection of the young from sexual wolves in Baptist clerical cloth. Or disfellowship of churches which ship predators of the cloth along to other congregations without a word of warning.

Oh no. Policy is clear: Women in the pulpit are a danger to the entire denomination. As are homosexuals welcomed into the pews. For the proliferation of predators, however, Southern Baptist Churches are autonomous. No denominational consequence for negligence.

An implicit SBC sexual predation policy? [Neglect]

The inflexibility with which the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) disfellowships member churches which affirm homosexual behavior may surpass Roman Catholic application of excommunication to other issues. The Catholic Church is more tolerant of homosexuality, but like the SBC, faces unrelenting problems with clerical sexual abuse.
The 500-member Royal Lane Baptist Church of North Dallas, Texas, recently placed itself in peril of ejection from the Baptist General Convention of Texas and from the SBC when the diaconate voted to rewrite the About Us section of its Web site to include:

Royal Lane Baptist Church is an inclusive, multi-generational congregation joined in Christian community. We are a vibrant mosaic of varied racial identities, ethnicities, sexual orientations, and denominational backgrounds.

That did not represent a change of heart by the church, as Sam Hodges of the Dallas Morning News reported:

"In effect, this is a collective coming out about who we are and have been for a long time," said Ruth May, vice chair of the deacons.
. . .
[The Rev. David] Matthews, who became Royal Lane's pastor last year, said the Bible "understood through the prism of Jesus" calls for full acceptance of gays and lesbians.

Debate over the issue immediately related BGCT/SBC action against local churches with regard to homosexuality and their failure to apply similar force to sexual predators. Nathan Barnes wrote:

The leadership of the SBC and apparently the BGCT are not willing to sacrifice church autonomy to catalog and track sex offending clergy but are willing to sacrifice it to keep GLBT folks from serving the Lord.

In rejoinder, another commenter said, "If aberrant behavior is to be accepted as normal and within God's provision for human sexual expression, why not pedophilia, or bestiality, or??" and Barnes responded:

BUT pedophila is already accepted. No church has been disassociated from the SBC or BGCT for passing on sex offending clergy to other churches.
It's not a double standard. It's the standard.

Christa Brown said at Stop Baptist Predators:

Mr. Barnes got it exactly right. Baptist leaders have so twisted the doctrine of local church autonomy as to make it little more than an easily manipulated excuse to serve their own ends. It’s pure contrivance for Baptist leaders to say they can’t do anything about clergy predators because of local church autonomy. After all, look at how quick they are to interfere with churches that admit to having gay members.

Like the Roman Catholic Church, the SBC is attempting to assert ethical/spiritual authority in the midst of a long public parade of evidence of its failure to protect young Christians from predatory members of its own clergy.
Both have other priorities.
Like hiding what they can behind confidentiality agreements. To protect the church's reputation and authority, of course.
As the Irish Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse wrote in 2009 that the Catholic Church pre-occupation"in dealing with cases of child sexual abuse" was "the maintenance of secrecy, the avoidance of scandal, the protection of the reputation of the Church, and the preservation of its assets." Not the protection of the children.
Suffering little children are a lower priority for the SBC than keeping women pastors out of the pulpit, keeping homosexuals out of the pews and barring otherwise somehow insufficiently fundamentalist churches from affiliation.
Realistic minds in both denominations must foresee, absent restoration of their reputation as safe places for the young, a future of empty pews.
[H/T: StopBaptistPredators]

Using a killer's words to blame the victim

Abused by Baylor University when she had to courage to report being assaulted by "murdering minister" Matt Baker when he was a student there, Lora Wilson is still a target of reflexive abuse.

Blame the victim is a hideous American practice, not exclusively a Southern Baptist sin -- one at which Christa Brown fired back when Lora Wilson was maligned with Baker's words in a recent blog comment.

The smear continues in part because the Southern Baptist institutions which are at fault have failed to acknowledge their responsibility. Christa writes:

To this day, no Baylor official has made any public expression of remorse. No one at First Baptist of Waco, a church that had two reports of Baker’s abuse, has expressed any sorrow about letting the man move on without consequence. No one at the Baptist General Convention of Texas has offered any explanation for how someone with so many abuse and assault reports could move so easily through its affiliated churches and organizations. And no one in Baptistland has made even the feeblest of effort to reach out to the many more who were likely wounded by “murdering minister” Matt Baker -- the many who are probably still silent.

A predator parsed in the Matt Baker murder trial testimony

More

• SBC predator database needed
• Profile & techniques of clerical predators
• Why predatory clergy flourish
• Clerical sexual abuse of adults is commonplace
• Religious sex offenders are the worst

Christa Brown parsed the verbal signatures of a clerical sexual predator from the testimony about Southern Baptist pastor Matt Baker in his Waco, Texas, murder trial.

Excerpting from Erin Quinn's trial blog, Brown creates a hair-raising dictionary of sexually predatory grooming and controlling intimidation by a pastor who is systematically misusing his occupational authority. For example, Baker's former mistress, Vanessa Bulls, testified that:

• He told her to “just date your pastor.” [isolation]
• Matt Baker took the divorce counseling to a new level. He started saying she was beautiful and asked her to come over. [abuse of a dual, pastor/counselor role]
• He told her “that God is such a forgiving God. I don’t think that God believes that a person can be with just one person for the rest of their life.”
• He told her that no one would believe her if she told anyone what he did because he was a preacher. [use of pastor role to intimidate | the jury believed her]
• Bulls told Baker to turn himself in [for murdering his wife Kari] and he told her “God has forgiven me.”

She was testifying to events in a world where clerical predators flourish because in well-documented ways, they are allowed to flourish. Baylor University’s Diana R. Garland and Christen Argueta have documented the psychological profile and techniques of sexually abusive pastors. The common themes of the church environment which allows clerical predators to flourish and as Brown says, "church-hop through Baptistland," have also been well-explained.

The murder of Kari Baker and surrounding human devastation showed with startling drama how tragically lives spin out as a result of Baptistland's refusal to impose well-known remedies to clerical predation. Investigators found evidence that Matt Baker had for years led “a secret life as a sexual predator.” Brown wrote:

Prosecutors said that he had made advances and assaults on at least 13 young women, including 4 minors. Yet, despite multiple reports of sexual abuse and sexual assault, Matt Baker was always able to continue his career through churches, schools, and organizations affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

When a Waco, Texas, jury found Matt Baker guilty Wednesday, it by implication indicted Southern Baptist failure to act forcefully to stop clerical predators in its midst.

Two churchmen sentenced, one inadequately

An Argentine judge sentenced former Archbishop of Sante Fe Edgardo Storni to eight years incarceration for abuse of his power to sexually exploit a male seminary student. That sentence punctuated a long running scandal in which a book was published documenting the abuse, the Vatican launched and abandoned an investigation and a succession of victims saw their cases dismissed by various judges.

Not similarly concerned with the abuse of power in such relationships, a California judge sentenced "the youth group leader at Miracle Land Korean Baptist Church in Cypress was sentenced to 90 days for having sex with a 15-year-old girl."

Both abuses occurred in close association with church events, making obvious the link between clerical authority and the sexual incidents.

Both assailants enjoyed the public support and protection of their church communities, as though their were something acceptable about their crimes. That misguided view of clerical sex crime contributes to the isolation of and harm to victims.

Most ethicists agree that betraying the trust of and abusing the authority of the ministry to secure sexual favors does not and cannot result in mutual consent.

The result is instead a form of rape.

Punishment at every level should fit the crime, should it not?

[H/T: Christa Brown]