Big Book Of Bad Baptist Preachers

[Catey]

It is a book, you can buy it on Amazon, it outlines and lists the names of Preachers caught up in sex scandals child explotation and MANY are still involved in churches.

Someone please explain to me how Religion(s) who spend so much time making sure that their children are kept pure and safe from anything harmful (like say a woman's knees)  are allowing

people like this to still be involved in their spiritual community. Why no outrage, where are the pitchforks to run these monsters out of town.

"Thanks to Jeri Massi for this powerful contribution to documenting Baptists' unholy patterns of do-nothingness with respect to child-molesting ministers. Sadly, the stories in Massi's book are not outliers or "bad apples." With its methodical organization, Massi's book unites the stories so as to illuminate the institutionally entrenched denial that allows clergy child molesters to move so easily through the porous sieve of Baptist churches.

And lest you delude yourself into thinking the kids are safe now that the perpetrators are named in a book, realize that, although it's a "big book," it presents only a small time-slice of cases that, for the most part, involved criminal charges and convictions. Since experts generally agree that less than ten percent of child molesters wind up in the criminal justice system, this means that the stories in Massi's book are just the tip of the iceberg. But unlike other major faith groups, most Baptist groups have shown themselves content to simply ignore the rest of the iceberg because, as Massi points out, they have refused to keep any sort of systematic denominational records on abuse reports against Baptist clergy. Since Southern Baptists are the largest Protestant denomination in the land, this institutional failure leaves many thousands of kids at undue risk for the soul-searing harm of clergy sex abuse."

 

Another good write up about it here:

http://brucegerencser.net/2015/12/the-big-book-of-bad-baptist-preachers-by-jeri-massi/

The book is here:

 

http://www.amazon.com/The-Big-Book-Baptist-Preachers/dp/1518883664/ref=cm_cr_pr_pdt_img_top?ie=UTF8

 

 

[Gimme a Free RV]

This sounds like something John Shrader would have written.

[polecat]

 

Quote

 

Someone please explain to me how Religion(s) who spend so much time making sure that their children are kept pure and safe from anything harmful (like say a woman's knees)  are allowing

people like this to still be involved in their spiritual community. Why no outrage, where are the pitchforks to run these monsters out of town.

 

I'd be happy to. 

1. God forgives everything the manogawd does. After all, He forgave David for sexing up Bathsheba, a married woman, AND for conspiring to kill her husband. What's a little sex abuse among God's men? 

2. If God forgives, you'd better forgive, too. You think God doesn't forgive? Well, then, that's on you -- and you'd better get right with God for being so bitter towards His Man. Touch not the Lord's annointed! 

3. Tempting God's man to sin is way worse than the actual sin. You say she wasn't willing, but who knows besides those two? His word against hers, and since he's the manogawd, we all know his word is worth more. 

4. Forgive and forget. You keep bringing it up. Are you bitter? God forgets our sins as far as the east from the west, and if you keep bringing them up and not forgiving, then you are WAY worse than the sinner. How dare you! 

5. Don't bring shame to God's name. It's better we let these things stay hidden than to bring them out into the light where they can make a mockery of God's name in the eyes of the world. 

 

Any more questions? I've heard this stuff since I can remember. I think I could probably go on all day about why these guys are still in the pulpit and actively supported by their congregations.

[Catey]

 @polecat Sadly I get exactly what you are saying, I have heard so many of those things..

What I will never understand is how that BULLSHIT can completely trump any iota of motherly instinct that you have to inherently protect your children.

So let me get this straight, if you are abused by a Man who is a "Good Christian" then it is on you, yet at the same time we will take batshit crazy steps to protect/shelter you from the outside world?

My head spins and it makes me want to vomit.

[polecat]

13 minutes ago, Catey said:

 @polecat Sadly I get exactly what you are saying, I have heard so many of those things..

What I will never understand is how that BULLSHIT can completely trump any iota of motherly instinct that you have to inherently protect your children.

So let me get this straight, if you are abused by a Man who is a "Good Christian" then it is on you, yet at the same time we will take batshit crazy steps to protect/shelter you from the outside world?

My head spins and it makes me want to vomit.

I don't know how people can ignore their parental instincts. I HAVE known of a few families who got the hell out of dodge after an abusive situation. But by and large, they're few and far between. If you leave, you are anathema, and your place in heaven is extremely questionable (in my neck of the fundy woods, you didn't lose your salvation -- but if you did anything "wrong," you are assumed to have never been saved at all). So I guess it's easier to stay, stifle the hurt and pain, and pretend that everything's a-okay.

[CyborgKin]

Also heard:

6. His behaviour may have been bad but that doesn't diminish the validity and importance of his message.

7. The enemies of the truth are blowing this out of proportion to smear the good name of God's people.

[polecat]

7 hours ago, CyborgKin said:

Also heard:

6. His behaviour may have been bad but that doesn't diminish the validity and importance of his message.

7. The enemies of the truth are blowing this out of proportion to smear the good name of God's people.

 

Oh yes! Especially that last one ... I heard that a LOT when the Jack Schaap sex abuse trial was going down. 

[Walking Cat Bed]

23 hours ago, Catey said:

 @polecat Sadly I get exactly what you are saying, I have heard so many of those things..

What I will never understand is how that BULLSHIT can completely trump any iota of motherly instinct that you have to inherently protect your children.

So let me get this straight, if you are abused by a Man who is a "Good Christian" then it is on you, yet at the same time we will take batshit crazy steps to protect/shelter you from the outside world?

My head spins and it makes me want to vomit.

 

I know that a lot of these preachers rely on their own (and their colleagues') teaching that children are sinful, lie, and that mothers need to disconnect their Spidey Sense -- because that feeling that something is wrong or that inclination that one's child is NOT lying about Pastor Bastard being handsy during a "counseling" session is the devil whispering lies.

 

Which is why so many girls (and boys) have been abused by Gothard and Schaap and who even knows how many more. Submit and obey.

[apple1]

In fairness, SOME mothers do the right thing and protect their kids if some one of these awful things happens - preacher or not.

I have a friend (not from Ohio) whose 9 or 10 year old daughter was sexually abused by an assistant pastor (could even be one from the book, I haven't read it). My friend wasted no time, reported to the police, the guy is serving a lengthy sentence right now.

I don't want to post any names because of the daughter's privacy.

[Walking Cat Bed]

I'm glad to hear that, @apple1.

[SledCat]

As an anecdote, one of the things that really solidified my decision on leaving the church was when I was thinking about University. A subject I was interested in was Psychology. A visiting IFB Pastor said to me... "You want to study Sick-ology?!" I have long thought there is a problem with "counseling" in the IFB church.

[Beb]

On December 8, 2015 at 11:29 AM, Catey said:

It is a book, you can buy it on Amazon, it outlines and lists the names of Preachers caught up in sex scandals child explotation and MANY are still involved in churches.

Someone please explain to me how Religion(s) who spend so much time making sure that their children are kept pure and safe from anything harmful (like say a woman's knees)  are allowing

people like this to still be involved in their spiritual community. Why no outrage, where are the pitchforks to run these monsters out of town.

"Thanks to Jeri Massi for this powerful contribution to documenting Baptists' unholy patterns of do-nothingness with respect to child-molesting ministers. Sadly, the stories in Massi's book are not outliers or "bad apples." With its methodical organization, Massi's book unites the stories so as to illuminate the institutionally entrenched denial that allows clergy child molesters to move so easily through the porous sieve of Baptist churches.

And lest you delude yourself into thinking the kids are safe now that the perpetrators are named in a book, realize that, although it's a "big book," it presents only a small time-slice of cases that, for the most part, involved criminal charges and convictions. Since experts generally agree that less than ten percent of child molesters wind up in the criminal justice system, this means that the stories in Massi's book are just the tip of the iceberg. But unlike other major faith groups, most Baptist groups have shown themselves content to simply ignore the rest of the iceberg because, as Massi points out, they have refused to keep any sort of systematic denominational records on abuse reports against Baptist clergy. Since Southern Baptists are the largest Protestant denomination in the land, this institutional failure leaves many thousands of kids at undue risk for the soul-searing harm of clergy sex abuse."

 

Another good write up about it here:

http://brucegerencser.net/2015/12/the-big-book-of-bad-baptist-preachers-by-jeri-massi/

The book is here:

 

http://www.amazon.com/The-Big-Book-Baptist-Preachers/dp/1518883664/ref=cm_cr_pr_pdt_img_top?ie=UTF8

 

 

......but isn't this dichotomy present in all religions (at least, in their fundamentalist form) from Baptist to Islam and all others? It may manifest itself differently, but it is there in all. 

 

(I thought about snipping the quote but decided it all needed to be here.)

[HerNameIsBuffy]

1 hour ago, Beb said:

......but isn't this dichotomy present in all religions (at least, in their fundamentalist form) from Baptist to Islam and all others? It may manifest itself differently, but it is there in all. 

 

(I thought about snipping the quote but decided it all needed to be here.)

Yes, and not just religion.  IMO far too many people teach their children to blindly obey people in authority.  Coupled with expecting them to accept as fact their parents/authority figures views on everything from politics, religion, to how to hang the toilet paper roll (which many of these types of parents do) without questioning they unwittingly help create victims.

I'm not suggesting letting kids run wild and rules don't apply...that's a huge disservice as well.  But it needs to be instilled in them early that their bodies are their own and no one has a right to harm them nor is anyone entitled to touch them inappropriately ever.  And if it happens they need to tell and they will be believed and protected.

I got shit when my kids were small that I wouldn't require them to go kiss/hug Aunt and Uncle Whomever hello, and no I didn't think that being pushed to give an elderly relative a kiss in a cheek would stir any desires in anyone.  But as a reluctant hugger myself who needed to warm up to people before getting comfortable I knew it felt (non-sexually) invasive and it's a slippery slope if they have to decide when they need to give adults affection to be nice and when it's inappropriate.  Kept the message cleaner to just say you never have to kiss/hug anyone you don't want to because no one is entitled to physical affection.

But I completely agree with you that any religion, culture, family dynamic...whatever...that requires children (and women in many of these) to unquestionably obey is very dangerous.  It gives abusers ready made victims of the ones who follow this teaching.  

 

 

 

[xlurker]

1 hour ago, HerNameIsBuffy said:

Yes, and not just religion.  IMO far too many people teach their children to blindly obey people in authority.  Coupled with expecting them to accept as fact their parents/authority figures views on everything from politics, religion, to how to hang the toilet paper roll (which many of these types of parents do) without questioning they unwittingly help create victims

So this!!!  I never really "sheltered" my kids...we would watch the news and I would explain in words they would understand what was happening.  When they were old enough to question my take on a situation I would tell them to research all sides and make their own decision.  Don't follow ANYBODY blindly!  Politically, religiously, culturally....it's all very dangerous.

 

As to "you have to kiss aunt/uncle whoever"  I also agree.  Some kids need warm up time, some kids just have an "icky" feeling about it..that's all ok.  Affection (if it is felt) can be conveyed in ways other than physically if that makes a person uncomfortable.

[violynn]

3 minutes ago, xlurker said:

So this!!!  I never really "sheltered" my kids...we would watch the news and I would explain in words they would understand what was happening.  When they were old enough to question my take on a situation I would tell them to research all sides and make their own decision.  Don't follow ANYBODY blindly!  Politically, religiously, culturally....it's all very dangerous.

 

As to "you have to kiss aunt/uncle whoever"  I also agree.  Some kids need warm up time, some kids just have an "icky" feeling about it..that's all ok.  Affection (if it is felt) can be conveyed in ways other than physically if that makes a person uncomfortable.

[Catey]

A Teachable moment. Thanks FJ.

I straight up admit I have never thought about it like this, I DO say to my youngest Okay, were going give Aunty Toomuchmakeup a hug goodbye.

I have always thought that I was pretty on top of the whole "bad touch" conversation but really never thought through what message I am sending in demanding/requesting un initiated hugs/kisses. I think if I had a kid that had balked at the suggestion I hope I would have noticed and adjusted but still you are right, it is a bad precedent.

I will say that with my older ones I don't make the same demand, they get more of a okay say bye were going now, if they hug/kiss or not I really don't care about so long as they look up from their phone screens long enough for eye contact.