Using "Membership Covenant" vs. Wife of Kiddie Porn Viewer

[notsocommon]

always a day late!!

[2xx1xy1JD]

Idolatry - did you read the part where the church leadership continues to email and text her and attempt to pressure her into a meeting AFTER she had made it abundantly clear that she was resigning her membership and wanted nothing to do with them? Read Steve Hardin's text messages.

This goes beyond simply not funding her missionary work.

[Idolatry]

Idolatry - did you read the part where the church leadership continues to email and text her and attempt to pressure her into a meeting AFTER she had made it abundantly clear that she was resigning her membership and wanted nothing to do with them? Read Steve Hardin's text messages.

This goes beyond simply not funding her missionary work.

She is still an employee. She quit the church, but not her job. They are still paying her. I don't see the problem.

She is on their payroll until August, so of course they have to contact her. Like an employer who fires you, they had to follow a process, which involved putting her in bad standing with whatever rules. Their rules are stupid, but she signed up for them, not me.

That was like four texts that were kind and friendly about praying with her and trying to meet to discuss her issues with them. That is harassment? LOL. She could block him but, oh wait, he is her boss.

[Palimpsest]

Is http://sim.org/ the organization with which Grifter John Schrader was initially involved?

No. SIM is very old school Evangelical. It's been around since the late 1880s. I want to call it interdenominational because SIM missionaries just have to agree with the statement of faith. SIM is not nearly Biblical or Independent Baptist enough for Shrader! SIM missionaries do have to raise their own funds through sponsoring churches, etc. though.

[Palimpsest]

She is still an employee. She quit the church, but not her job. They are still paying her. I don't see the problem.

She is on their payroll until August, so of course they have to contact her. Like an employer who fires you, they had to follow a process, which involved putting her in bad standing with whatever rules. Their rules are stupid, but she signed up for them, not me.

That was like four texts that were kind and friendly about praying with her and trying to meet to discuss her issues with them. That is harassment? LOL. She could block him but, oh wait, he is her boss.

Idolatry, you are missing the point. She is not an employee of the church. The church funded her as an SIM missionary. SIM (technically her employer) seems to have negotiated with Village Baptist to continue funding her employment with SIM through August, even though she and child porn watching husband have been placed on leave. I'd like to have been a fly on the wall for that conversation.

So, she was a member of the church who has now left. The church is claiming that she cannot leave because she is under church discipline. Unless she reconciles with her husband she is in violation of church discipline. So she can't leave unless she reconciles with her husband and she refuses to do that.

Some of these Covenants are a disgrace and, while not legally binding, are used for blackmail purposes. The State, in this case, is siding with Karen.

If she wants to join another church or get funding for missionary work with SIM elsewhere they will bad mouth her to her new church. Only the extremely naïve sign those church covenants. My recommendation to anyone wanting to join a covenant church is - run like hell in the other direction.

Funny, the last person I remember discussing in the context of ridiculous Church Covenants was DPIAT. He left BCA under church discipline and managed to get membership in another church. BCA, under new management, was really pissed! Doug pulled the "you can't leave 'cos Covenant and church discipline" against many disgruntled BCA members in his time and pursued them relentlessly. It was quite funny to see him get a dose of his own medicine.

[2xx1xy1JD]

They had provided funding but were not employing her directly. In any case, it sounded like the payment until August was akin to termination pay. There was no reason for them to be contacting her on an ongoing basis to pressure her into meetings with elders and urge her to reconcile with her husband.

They are actually just like an abusive, stalker ex-boyfriend.

[Idolatry]

I completely agree that the covenants are ridiculous and no one should sign them. They are a sign of a complete control freak church. Add some kiddie porn, and I wouldn't walk on this church's sidewalk.

But employers have to cover their asses, sorry. She refused to resign from her job, and she refused to follow the rules, so what choice did they have? They were paying SIM, and still are. So obviously, they had to follow their own disciplinary rules. Does this show how stupid the rules are? Obviously.

But you have never dealt with any kind of HR in the US if you are surprised at the lengths they are going to to follow their exact procedures and document her refusal to comply with their ridiculous rules. This is just covering their asses. Thank the lawyers.

[Palimpsest]

Here is Julie Anne's take on the situation:

http://spiritualsoundingboard.com/2015/ ... rmer-wife/

Lots of good links there.

This has nothing to do with employment and HR. Or blaming lawyers.

It has to do with a spiritually abusive church which believes in disciplining women for not wanting to stay married to husbands who are pedophiles and refuses to let them leave the church.

SIM, her employer, seems to have covered all its legal bases anyway. They require missionaries to be in good standing with their church. Furthermore, Karen has "quit her job" by dropping her request to return to the mission field with SIM. SIM might be very happy to take her back if she finds another church to sponsor her for all we know.

None of that should change the terms of her 6th month paid leave retroactively. And it has nothing to do with what the church is trying to do to her now.

Idolatry, I've had plenty of dealings with HR in the US, although it is Mr. P's area of expertise. :lol:

[2xx1xy1JD]

They don't reference this being an employment issue anywhere. They are providing funding to the end of August, but they are not her employer. If they want to limit funding to church members in good standing, she's already resigned.

Instead, they talk about this being a "church discipline" issue and have refused to accept her church membership resignation. They have repeatedly contacted her against her wishes. They've told their 6,000+ members that she's under discipline. There was an email asking where she was living and talking about "pushing her under our care".

There's no legitimate reason for them to be doing this. They could have simply parted way and been done.

[mirele]

Did we read the same email? They condemned and harrassed her? This was a pretty considerate and thoughtful email, considering the circumstances.

She agreed to their bullshit views on marriage, got paid them to evangelize them, is still being paid to evangelize them, and then refused to do them.

Good for her for walking out, and the whole church should walk with her.

But the church is entitled to make sure its missionaries are following their views. I can completely disagree with the church on reconciling with a pedophile, and still think the church shouldn't pay you to rep them when you won't comply. Marriage reconciliation, submission, headship, I can think of a lot of bullshit marriage views that a lot of churches have.

And yes, this lady has bad taste in men and churches.

There are a lot of things you are not getting here.

She was representing a mission organization, SIM, over in East Asia. NOT THE VILLAGE CHURCH.

She was not, so far as we know, pushing the Village Church's bullshit views on marriage because she was working for SIM.

As for the letter that went out, as far as I am concerned, there's a very real chance that the church committed the torts of invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress and defamation by sending that thing out to all ~6,000 members. The church knows this--because I've called and e-mailed the pastors involved. I even left my real name and my cell phone number. Have they contacted me? Not on your life.

She resigned from the church on 2/11/15. As of 5/23/15, they were continuing to try and reach out and touch her by sending out this f*cked up letter to their membership. Even the Mormon church knows better than to harass resigned members like this.

I would suggest you read what Wade Burleson, a Baptist pastor up in Enid, Oklahoma, has to say about this. He's pretty blunt and to the point. (For the record, I don't agree with Wade on much, but I give him two thumbs up here.)

wadeburleson.org/2015/05/it-takes-village-covenant-to-raise.html

[Idolatry]

There are a lot of things you are not getting here.

She was representing a mission organization, SIM, over in East Asia. NOT THE VILLAGE CHURCH.

She was not, so far as we know, pushing the Village Church's bullshit views on marriage because she was working for SIM.

As for the letter that went out, as far as I am concerned, there's a very real chance that the church committed the torts of invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress and defamation by sending that thing out to all ~6,000 members. The church knows this--because I've called and e-mailed the pastors involved. I even left my real name and my cell phone number. Have they contacted me? Not on your life.

She resigned from the church on 2/11/15. As of 5/23/15, they were continuing to try and reach out and touch her by sending out this f*cked up letter to their membership. Even the Mormon church knows better than to harass resigned members like this.

I would suggest you read what Wade Burleson, a Baptist pastor up in Enid, Oklahoma, has to say about this. He's pretty blunt and to the point. (For the record, I don't agree with Wade on much, but I give him two thumbs up here.)

wadeburleson.org/2015/05/it-takes-village-covenant-to-raise.html

OK, that was an awesome article on many levels. Awesome.

[MichellezBangz]

(Subscribing)

[refugee]

What I'm reading here is that:

1. TVC continued to pursue and harass Karen AFTER she explicitly informed them in writing that she was withdrawing from church membership and asked them to leave her alone.

2. TVC condemned her in writing to their entire covenant membership, which is in the thousands.

To say that this means nothing unless she recognizes its power of her, or that she has poor taste in churches, is a bit like saying that a woman shouldn't have had a relationship with an abusive stalker. She's tried to end it, they aren't taking no for an answer, they are pursuing her and trying to make her life miserable because she won't submit to their control.

3. TVC currently has Karen under discipline, but not her pedophile husband. In their control-freak universe, defying church officials by seeking an annulment without their consent is worse that viewing child porn.

4. Karen feels that this issue with her husband goes beyond mere marital difficulty, and that he was actually somebody completely different than the man she thought she was marrying. Perhaps it was foolish of her to agree to a covenant membership with its clause about marital reconciliation - but so what? Who anticipates that their beloved husband is actually into this stuff? She's recognized that she can't be with him, that he poses a serious risk to children and that she can no longer be part of the church that supports him. Good for her. She should be applauded for recognizing all of this and having the courage to break ties despite the high personal cost, not criticized for not being clairvoyant and making decisions that turned out badly.

5. The church, by pushing reconciliation, actually thinks that it would be appropriate for her to stay with a pedophile. What about any future children? Or any children they serve in a ministry? Or the fact that she may feel like throwing up when she thinks about what he did?

Also, from what I read today, she has not requested that TVC continue to support her. IOW, she's not asking them for money.

Apparently they stopped supporting her, while telling church members they *were* providing support. She corrected this misinformation by telling someone near the end of April that she hadn't received any money from the church since February (she resigned her membership Feb. 11th). The day after she told someone that, she got a text message from an elder that there had been some sort of administrative mixup and she would be getting support through August.

She also said in the same post that she doesn't need contributions from TVC, that any contributions they put in her missionary account actually won't go to her, but to someone who follows after her, because it's over and above what she needs in terms of funding.

So, she's not trying to suck at the church's teat while biting the hand that feeds her. It's more like they're trying to use every avenue they can to control her, including money, and thankfully she has enough support (monetary and otherwise) elsewhere that she can just tell them to go take a hike. And has.

The church says that she keeps contacting them, but from what I saw of the emails and text messages posted, her communications after February 11th consist mainly of "please leave me alone, please stop contacting me".

[refugee]

Did we read the same email? They condemned and harrassed her? This was a pretty considerate and thoughtful email, considering the circumstances.

She agreed to their bullshit views on marriage, got paid them to evangelize them, is still being paid to evangelize them, and then refused to do them.

Good for her for walking out, and the whole church should walk with her.

But the church is entitled to make sure its missionaries are following their views. I can completely disagree with the church on reconciling with a pedophile, and still think the church shouldn't pay you to rep them when you won't comply. Marriage reconciliation, submission, headship, I can think of a lot of bullshit marriage views that a lot of churches have.

And yes, this lady has bad taste in men and churches.

Re: the bolded. She is not still getting paid. That's the church's story. It was interesting to read her response to the church's email to the 6,000+ members.

And apparently she has changed direction (partly because the church threatened the missionary organization if it continues to support her) and is no longer going to be a missionary.

Fascinating story. I'm interested to see what the church's next step will be.

[Palimpsest]

Thanks Miriele for that article. Apparently Wade Burleson is getting it right for once. I particularly liked this bit:

I'd like to offer you some unsolicited advice, that if taken, might protect you from litigation that every attorney with a shingle on his window would love to take against you. It seems to me that Karen doesn't want to harm Village Church or anyone else. She just wants people to take child sexual abuse seriously. Here's my advice.

(1). Write an immediate letter of apology--and I mean immediate-- to Karen Hinckley, retracting the earlier letter, and informing Karen that you are indeed accepting Karen's resignation from your church.

(2). Never speak on behalf of Karen Hinckley again--to anyone--including the members of your congregation.

(3). Realize that your 501c-3 called Village Church is not equivalent to the Kingdom of God. Yes, you play a huge and vital role in His Kingdom, but your non-profit and His Kingdom are not synonymous. Therefore, next time anyone decides they wish to leave your non-profit, let them go.

wadeburleson.org/2015/05/it-takes-village-covenant-to-raise.html

Refugee, yes. It is going to be interesting to see how this goes. I had not realized that Chandler had threatened SIM.

Here is the link to Karen's response to the VBC email: watchkeep.blogspot.com/2015/05/karen-hinkleys-response-to-village.html

[notsocommon]

TVC says SORRY....in a half assed way

matthewpaulturner.com/2015/05/28/matt-chandler-the-village-church-offer-apology-to-karen-hinkley/

[Edited by hoipolloi to remove direct link]

[Palimpsest]

^^^^^

Extremely half-assed. They must have had a shitload of negative feedback to have felt the need to issue even that meager statement though. Unusual for a conservative church of this type.

I wonder whether they will actually follow through on an external audit of their child protection policies. Their provisions for Jordan Root hardly seemed adequate.

The comments under that article are interesting too, including the one by our very own Mirele. Thanks, Mirele!

There is also a good link in the comments to a blogger writing about missionaries who do nothing in the field that I'm taking over to the Shrader thread.

[mirele]

I can be more open here than I can be over there. I can say that apology is Full of Shit. It's obvious it was caused by this "news" article from Christianity Today.

www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2015/may-w ... to-di.html

Here's the tags on the story:

Abuse / Church Discipline / Matt Chandler / Missions / Pornography / Sexual Sin

Missing: Pedophilia, Legal, Crimes, Torts ... anyone else got one they could add?

This episode just makes it clear how far I've moved from the church orbit. I'm absolutely unwilling to accept the authority of some bullshit unmovable covenant over my life administered by men not acting in my best interest, but in the interests of their church. And no, the interests of both are not congruent. But hey, what do I know? I have Two X Chromosome Syndrome (aka I'm female) and don't know jack according to these guys.

[Palimpsest]

I can be more open here than I can be over there. I can say that apology is Full of Shit. It's obvious it was caused by this "news" article from Christianity Today.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/201 ... to-di.html

Here's the tags on the story:

Abuse / Church Discipline / Matt Chandler / Missions / Pornography / Sexual Sin

Missing: Pedophilia, Legal, Crimes, Torts ... anyone else got one they could add?

This episode just makes it clear how far I've moved from the church orbit. I'm absolutely unwilling to accept the authority of some bullshit unmovable covenant over my life administered by men not acting in my best interest, but in the interests of their church. And no, the interests of both are not congruent. But hey, what do I know? I have Two X Chromosome Syndrome (aka I'm female) and don't know jack according to these guys.

Well, thank the Lord (I don't believe in) for the fact that you have moved on so thoroughly from this twisted thinking.

Yeah, it was Christianity Today, so I am not surprised that the tags you mentioned were missing.

My Pollyanna/optimist side just rejoices that Christianity Today even published the story it did (even with the glaring omissions.) It will take time to get the heretic main stream media to publicize this sort of story properly. Unless it concerns a D star on cable TV. Read Josh Duggar.

Baby steps though. Thanks for speaking out so loudly and eloquently here. It really does make a difference in our understanding. I also strongly suspect we have a lot of Fundie lurkers on FJ, so you are not just preaching to the gallery. Did I say Pollyanna? I live in hope.

[bea]

They're actually apologizing for looking like psychotic stalkers for Jesus, not really apologizing to Karen Root..

Analysis of their apology: http: //thewartburgwatch .com/2015/05/29/a-tww-tutorial-analyzing-the-village-church-elders-apology-to-karen-hinkley-and-others/comment-page-1/

[eviek]

What a bunch of ass clowns. Unfortunately for me, I'm a woman still stuck in the greater Dallas/ Fort Worth area. I had the good fortune to leave the church life about a year and a half ago, much to the shame of my family and my cow. People think I'm a closet lesbian (my husband will tell you otherwise) or that I've sold my soul to Satan (Jesus will tell you otherwise) but really I got sick of the church shit. I'm better off serving God outside the walls without the politics. Karen is my new hero. :clap:

[GenerationCedarchip]

Just bumping because it sounds like there has been an understanding reached between Karen Hinkley and The Village Church. Sounds like TVC finally sat down with Hinkley and asked for forgiveness.

The whole situation has been covered in depth over at Wartburg Watch and here's the link to the latest:

http://thewartburgwatch.com/2015/06/10/ ... n-hinkley/

Link not broken because I'm guessing they wouldn't care

[elizasc]

Thanks for the update