Pedaphiles in Church

I may have already posted this in the pastor's forum, but I would like to get some members to give me a response to what has happened at a church I used to attend. It was the largest SBC in town with about 750 members and I ran the sound board in the auditorium for almost every service. I was introduced to a person (man about 40). Who was extremely nice and really seemed sincere. He worked in the television ministry where he could sit in a room and zoom different monitors in on anybody in the audience or on stage. He never wanted to work in the auditorium when I was gone. One night the newspaper came out and he was to be sentenced for pleading guilty to child molestation of his step-daughter. We were never told--period. I had my children with me and let them go upstairs around him alone many times. My children are adopted and their real father had molested them, so I know a lot about the live-long sentences the children face. My wife got the court records and we found out the pastor testified that the entire church knew about this and was backing him and this man should not go to jail as he was a great Christian. The sad part is the church knew about this three months before it was turned in to child protective services. He was recommended to go to a "Christian counselor" in another town who had to turn him in. He was arrested and pled guilty and in his own handwriting said he molested the child from 8 years old until 13, two to three times a week and committed sodomy the last 1 1/2 years.
He did NOT start going to church until AFTER the police caught him. His story is that he went to the park and was talking with his wife (who was mad) and they went to the pastors house where the pastor said in court that he had never seen a more dramatic "conversion" in his ministry. The youth minister testified for him as did the song leader who gave him the job. They intended to make him the media director because he lost his job as an ZEROX repair-man. Once the deacons found out -- this stopped, but I asked the song-director to at least tell the parents that he is a pedaphile. The pastor cornered two of my friends and said he wasn't a pedaphile because "he didn't go all the way if you know what I mean" and "he was not attracted to children" The "christian counselor" said the same thing in court. (of course he was paid well) I talked to the detective and she was VERY upset with these witnesses at a sentencing hearing and shocked when she found out I worked with him almost a year without knowing because the pastor had to have committed perjury because everybody we talked to didn't know about him. Now, we became outcasts (shunned - nobody would talk to us from the staff) because we kept asking them to tell the parents. We finally had to leave the church. Now the rumour going around is that he was caught embezzling. Because of the testimony his minimum sentence of 15 years was suspended except for a year and a half and he served eight months only to come right back. Now he has been seen looking into the nursery window, only to head for the coke machine when someone walks up. He was visited by a recently divorced lady with a six month old child. His reason for not wanting jail time is so he could rejoin his family and support them. He got a divorce and started dating the lady as soon as he was out. She says she trusts him around her child because he is a changed Christian. By reading all of the court records it is obvious that he did what was necessary to get the shortest sentence possible. He even walked down and talked to the pastor during the invitation during BOTH of our morning services (early contemporary and 11 oclock conventional) I believe this was orchestrated so that he would be seen by ALL of the members coming to the front. On Wednesday night before he went to jail on Friday, he said he was going away for a while, but didn't mention why. He only said he did something wrong for which he was sorry for.
I called one of the head deacons and he said that if this came out it would "start a bonfire and I was NOT going to do that in HIS church, period, and he said I was just jealous because he works the tv board" which I never wanted to do anyway. He is still there and even though he was listed as a sexual molester in the paper, the church keeps his crimes hidden from the parents. The entire got to where he wouldn't even talk to me and my wife because we told people about this privately. Because we had problems with our children (due to their abuse) they made it a big issue in the church. The youth director would walk right by me and not even talk to me. The music director who promised to tell the parents would NOT do anything and he even told the kids in choir to find him and thank him individually for taking their pictures since he goes out and films for the church. He will not sit in the auditorium and listen to the sermons (remember this is a new Christian). Is this typical in today's modern churches? Is it typical for a pastor to lie for the better good of the church? The "Christian counselor" now works in the church office for 75 bucks an hour -- to me there is no difference from Jesus overturning the people who sold items in the temple. This is just a marketing scheme to get customers (he has no Christian training on his resume that came from the court records only a psychology degree from a state school). Is this normal? Am I out of line for wanting to warn parents? I am convinced this pastor simply wants to build a big resume, he is a politician at its best. It is sad because we got to where watching him preach made us wonder what was truth and what wasn't. According to him, we are just not forgiving. My families only concern is the safety of the children. I would like to hear some responses and thoughts about this from anybody and everybody who cares to respond. THank you.

 

Thank you very much for your response. We have already joined another church, a much smaller church and (it shouldn't be a surprise) there are no politics--the pastor isn't putting on a show--he is the most humble pastor I have ever known and he preaches from the Bible through-out his sermons. He may be old fashioned, but I have not heard such preaching in years. Plus, the LOVE in that church is real. If every single member doesn't shake your hand or pat you on the back when you go to church something is wrong. If you ever come through our town it is Frink Baptist Church. Thank you, I just needed some encouragement on the other situation -- sometimes I felt guilty for leaving --feeling as if I didn't do as much as I should have. I will leave it in God's hands now.

 

Thank you very much for your reply Nicole. I guess if I hadn't raised three girls who had been abused when they were younger I wouldn't be so angry towards the situation (not the people -- at least now). I tried to show the music minister (who has a lot of clout) all of the court documents that showed the pastor was lying and all he did was break my confidentiality and went straight to the pastor with what I said. They even tried to get the detective in trouble for talking to me. (The pastor is now playing politics with the police chief --small town politics).
Apparently, she (the detective) told the minister in no uncertain terms that if he didn't report a situation like this again that she would be locking handcuffs on him. (I would have liked to have been a fly on the wall for that one.) The part that REALLY upset us is that the girl told our daughter at church camp that she had the same problem as my daughter had gone through. My daughter instantly took her to the youth minister who never bothered to call DHS and didn't react until several weeks later and then he just called the man in and referred him to the counselor. (Nobody does anything at the church unless the pastor approves it--dictator syndrome I guess haha) Anyway, my wife went to the church and specifically asked the pastor Twice -- right in his office: "Are YOU going to turn this in because if you don't I have to." He said, "Yes, we will take care of it. You don't need to do anything." -- twice. Then all they did was refer him to a counselor -- ABOUT THREE MONTHS AFTER CAMP.
She went away assurred and because it is a fairly big church (about 750 attendance) we didn't connect the name of the little girl at camp with the man I worked with in tv. I thought it was very odd when I was Chairman of the Radio & TV committee and told them we needed to train young people in high school to run the cameras etc when we were short on volunteers. The song leader immediately told me that we couldn't do that because kids will leave for college after being trained. It wasn't until the paper printed the story on the front page did I find out the reason for that remark.
Anybody we talked to about it (and it was only a few close friends) went to the pastor and he gave them the same story -- it finally came down to one little incident (I counted (6 yrs to 13 yrs 2 to 3 times a week) even on the low end of 2 times a week is over 100 molestations a year.
Let me be REAL CLEAR--I told the youth minister I had NO problems with this man being in church. I told him that he needed a deacon assigned to accompany him. Instead of "working" (in Oklahoma it is illegal for a person to work or volunteer in any organization that provides services of any type to children) in the TV room. I told him that he needs to prove himself by sitting in the congregation and LISTENING to the sermons for several years first. He basically indicated that if it was me or him, then he couldn't guarantee anything -- that is where the accusation of jealousy came from because I really didn't care--it was a volunteer job anyway.
Yes, we let Satan have his way and I continued to work and my wife could not go after having the pastor blatantly lie to her. He called her one day to discuss something to do with this and he got angry when she told him why she was upset (actually very calmly). She thought he needed to know and he got angry and started yelling on the phone "I'm not a liar. I'm not a liar." THAT is when I told her that I had enough and we started shopping and now we're listening to the Lord again. So, I'm not going to turn him in-- we have told all of the ministers our problems there and they choose to do nothing except let him have more duties around children. (About a year after this another pedaphile was caught -- a school teacher who was single and had boys coming to his house and was filming them in his bathroom to sell the pix on the net.) The pastor went down and bailed him out in the middle of the night. Yes, I guess he takes good care of his flock. So, we have just turned it over to the Lord and moved on.
BUT, I still worry about the children. This week we had a county wide youth rally at our church and the other churches youth minister was there. He saw me would not speak--real Christian attitude. But, what was funny, they are the biggest church around (all the others are 150-250 people) and they had one of the lower numbers of kids at the rally. I'll quit rambling. It just goes on and on. I have to go on myself now. Thank you again.

 

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Larry:
Man! What's wrong with you?

You need to give the man and the pastor an ultimatum. "Come clean with the church or I will tell everything I know. If your thinking about having me banned from attending services, I will have no other recourse than to go to the media"

Ps: did it ever cross your mind that if he is molesting children (he could be doing it right now) that God may hold you to a level of guilt, for your silence? How can you sleep at night?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

First of all, we did as the Bible says and went to the church leaders with witnesses and told them our problems. The people we discussed it with included the head deacon, a Sunday school teacher who works in the DA's office, the pastor, youth minister and the detective (who agreed with us) and the music minister who's father is a big-wig in the church and he is the one protecting this guy. When the STAFF lies and uses half-lies, people don't believe you, plus I said I have raised three abused girls myself. Because of their abuse we have had problems with them and the pastor used those problems (running away, etc.) to essentially impeach any truth we might tell.

Secondly, We told several parents of children (the ones we knew), but they went to the pastor and got the OTHER story and now they think we are blowing it all out of proportion.

You are judging me on an unfair level because I cannot tell ALL of the details of two years on one forum in one day. We prayed and prayed about the situation and we have done our part.

THIRDLY AND FINALLY: I WILL NOT tell the media because Christians are getting a bad enough rap to help non-Christian journalists destroy another church. If it is destroyed, it will be on the shoulders of the staff. . . NOT on my shoulders. Sorry, brother, but I disagree with you. I have a clean heart and sleep well at night.

I also sleep well because I took on three beautiful abused children, give them my name and did the best I could to instill the Word of God in their hearts. Two are rebelling right now, but that is typical of abused children. They will eventually turn back to the Lord because that is the way they were raised. The youngest still loves to go to church with us every Sunday (The oldest are in their early 20's).

Phillip

PS The letter written right after yours was posted before I read yours. It is written to Nicole.

 

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by katie:
Can God change a man like this? I think so.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Katie: I agree with you 100%.

My problem is NOT the man going to church. Jesus went to the homes and ate with sinners and was scorned for it.

My problem is the deceit of a SINGLE church's leadership AND their help in court to get this man's sentence reduced from 15 years to 1/10 of that, by telling the court that the church was behind him 100% when they did not even know he had committed a crime.

My suggestion to them was to please warn the parents and let them decide if they wanted to watch their children closer or move, plus I also suggested they assign a full time deacon to sit with him and help him with his life. This would prevent him being alone around children.

If he says he is a Christian, we have to accept that until we see otherwise--he does have a right to go to church! Plus, the SBC has NOTHING to do with this case at all. You must remember the SBC does not RUN Baptist Churches--it is the other way around. Southern Baptist Churches are independent and local.

No jumping here Katie

 

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Larry:
Phillip,

I apparently misread the situation and am sorry.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

You are a good man Larry, I appreciate your appology. You were right in the first and I too am sorry I snapped back so quick. Yes, I think we are thinking very much alike on this because I faxed them my resignation explaining why I quit and not only were they open to a lawsuit they were also open to getting their liability insurance either cancelled or the premiums raised out of sight. I also told them that in Oklahoma it is "illegal" to hire this man by any organization that provides services of any type to children. As far as I am concerned nursery, Bible School, etc. are all services for children. Believe me, we tried to tell people, but when the leadership covers it the way they did we were shunned as they did in the colonies years ago. and I mean "shunned". We went to a church picnic and my wife and I were completely ignored by the pastor, the entire staff and all the deacons except the head deacon who said I was doing what God wanted by keeping my "continuing to work with this guy". Little did he know I was already planning to leave as soon as we decided where we wanted to go.

I told our story in detail to our new pastor and he agreed with us all the way and even said that pedaphiles "use" churches because of the children and the trusting Christians. He said this from the pulpit, so now I feel we are in the right place. We still tell everybody we see why we left, but almost everybody says now: "Oh, we talked to the pastor about this and it was all blown out of whack." I then tell them to read my court records and a few have and were shocked. I am thinking about turning this information over to the SBC so that they can be warned of this pastor should he move on. I feel that this might be my responsibility, do you agree?

Thanks,
Phillip

 

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by katie:

Oh I agree, but I did say I was responding to Larry, not Phillip.

God forgives past sins, people do not.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes, Katie, I understood that you were responding to Larry, but I also saw a pattern among some of the responses that some of the Independents may not have understood precisely that the SBC was run by the churches and I was simply clarifying that issue for everybody. I agree with you.

In response to your other remark about God forgiving sins and people do not I'm not sure exactly what you mean. If this is a tongue-in-cheek statement I agree, if you mean it literally I want to make my feelings known. ..and this even includes the situation I talked about. God forgives sins, and we are supposed to do the same thing. We should not harbor hatred or unforgiveness toward anybody.

In fact, you may disagree with this, but Jesus plainly says in Matthew that we are to "love" our enemy as we love our neighbor. Right now it is very hard to love those pilots who rammed the trade-center and pentagon, BUT to be more like Jesus (as Paul says) we are to love them and pray for them. It is the GOVERNMENT'S responsibility to pass any judgments and penalties and we are to back those because the government is ordained by God. Therefore if Bush decides that Afganistan needs to be invaded then so be it. This is the reason I believe in the death penalty. (See Romans 13:1-6) BUT, AS Christians we MUST LOVE EVERYBODY---not the evil--the person. Therefore in the case of the child molester, we should allow the state
to punish him "not stop it". Plus, we should also use our brains and protect our children and not put him in situations where he is "working" in the church, etc. Only God truly knows if he has changed and we can't be ****** and take that risk.
I am not arguing with anything you may believe here, simply stating my beliefs for you and others.
God Bless...

 

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Larry:
[QB]

Yes I agree.

[QB]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Thanks Larry, I will write this up in a formal letter and send it both to the state and national headquarters. I will also include the court documents so if they should talk to the pastor and he is not honest they will have the facts in front of them.