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Fundy Walk of Shame: Scandals and Crimes


Bethella

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I just came to post this. It's heartbreaking. The Kamp (!) had a strict rule about no nudity and other rules that Newman broke repeatedly and in a public enough way that many boys reported it to their parents, as well as molestation -- the parents reported it to Kanakuk/White and NOTHING HAPPENED.  Then a bunch of ridiculous restrictions were applied to Newman, rather than just kicking him out and reporting him to police.  He was a cash cow and they didn't want to let that go and possibly hundreds of boys suffered. 

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Even more horrifying, Newman was only one of at least six known abusers [CW at that link] to work at or be associated with Kanakuk. 

And are we surprised that Joe White says that Bill Gothard is one his heroes?

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2 hours ago, Howl said:

Then a bunch of ridiculous restrictions were applied to Newman,

It’s worth mentioning that they somehow deemed it appropriate to only have the restrictions in place until Newman married. Because as we all know, women are fully responsible for keeping their husband’s predatory behavior in check. /s

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I read the entire article posted on the previous page. I am absolutely horrified that the camp leaders did nothing despite being told by multiple parents about Newman's behavior.

I also have a question: why does the article use the term sodomy and not rape? English is not my first language, but I always thought that sex without consent, regardless of the genders of victim(s) and perpetrator(s), is rape. Otherwise men couldn't be raped, and that's highly problematic. So is this just a definition thing that I'm not aware of? First I thought it might be the more general "media are afraid/reluctant to use the term rape when it actually applies", but I noticed that when the article quoted the conviction of another abuser, that the conviction also read "sodomy" instead of rape. Is this a legal issue?

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Just a guess on my part, but I think it’s to signify that the assaults were male-on-male.  They may only believe that male-on-female is rape.

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1 hour ago, smittykins said:

Just a guess on my part, but I think it’s to signify that the assaults were male-on-male.  They may only believe that male-on-female is rape.

One of the cases where the term sodomy was used was that of a father abusing his daughter. I wonder if they used the more specific term to try to stop the way some people minimize sexual abuse and assault. I don't know.

Edited by WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo?
redundant
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7 hours ago, Marly said:

I also have a question: why does the article use the term sodomy and not rape? English is not my first language, but I always thought that sex without consent, regardless of the genders of victim(s) and perpetrator(s), is rape. Otherwise men couldn't be raped, and that's highly problematic.

IANAL so this is just a guess: It may be that the US state(s) in which these crimes were prosecuted have statutory descriptions of sexual abuse that include specific terms with definitions. In order to prosecute someone for one or more of such crimes in that state, you have to use the statutory labels and definitions. In many cases, the language of the law is outdated but has not been amended to reflect current clinical understanding of sexual abuse, who perpetrates it, and who is a victim.

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I knew the name was familiar. The Patton sisters (Duggar hanger ons) were counselors there for many summers as well. 

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Back to RZIM implosion aftermath: 

Ravi Zacharias ministry to change focus to supporting evangelism and abuse victims The nonprofit founded by the disgraced evangelist Ravi Zacharias announced plans to trim its workforce and alter its focus.

They are changing their name and the new focus will be on

Quote

becoming a grant-making organization, which will support both evangelism and “the prevention of and caring for victims of sexual abuse.”

Donations have dried up and they'll lay off 60% of their work force.   No idea where the money will come from for grant making. 

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6 minutes ago, Howl said:

Back to RZIM implosion aftermath: 

Ravi Zacharias ministry to change focus to supporting evangelism and abuse victims The nonprofit founded by the disgraced evangelist Ravi Zacharias announced plans to trim its workforce and alter its focus.

They are changing their name and the new focus will be on

Donations have dried up and they'll lay off 60% of their work force.   No idea where the money will come from for grant making. 

I’m so baffled why they think moving to be an org that supports abuse victims is in any way a good idea. They are clearly not qualified to identify abuse, and they don’t have the funds to hire anyone who is trained in that field. What a crock. They need to just close their doors and be done. 

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13 minutes ago, G33kywife said:

They need to just close their doors and be done. 

Yes, just give their funds to GRACE and be done. 

GRACE is the acronym for Godly Response to Grace in the Christian Environment (netgrace.org).  Founder Boz Tchividjian (grandson of Billy Graham) stepped down in 2019 to focus on his law practice oriented towards defending those who have been abused. Boz Tchividjian to Step Down From Organization He Founded to Fight Abuse

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This popped up on Twitter today, in the last few hours.  I've cut and pasted the Tweets between @AbuseClergy and @Josephi28296543 for non-Tweeps below.  It has to do with opting for a tax status that allows them to not publicly report salaries in tax documents.  I think the poster is implying that this amounts to a form of fraud, by (presumably) hiding very high salaries paid to Ravi Z's family members.  Apparently Ravi Z's death and the subsequent scandalous revelations have ripped the bandaid off of a lot of malfeasance related to RIZM nepotism. There is also a link to the lie-filled RICO lawsuit filed by Ravi Z claiming he was set up by Lorri Anne  and Bradley Thompson and how RIZM tried to put distance between itself and Ravi Z's RICO suit.   Maybe there is more than one reason that RIZM is restructuring and attempting to reinvent itself?

If any legal eagle tax-type people have insight on the implications,  please post: 

Spoiler

@AbuseClergy: One thing that has been exposed from the sad saga of @RZIMhq is how some ministries claim an exemption to be “An association of churches”, thereby avoiding transparency by not filing form 990’s, which require key employee salaries. In this case, several of Ravi’s family members.

@Josephi28296543: RICO Para. 14: "RZIM is not a church..." & #AbduMurray consulted w/Atty. Brian Kelly. RZIM tried to distance themselves from the RICO suit YET keep @abdumurray involved. Such a nest of vipers. United States District Court, Northern District of Georgia, Atlanta Division Ravi Zacharias, Plaintiff  vs. Bradley Thompson and Lori Anne Thompson, Defendants

@AbuseClergy: Absolutely! Nor are any of the other non church “ministries” that conveniently claim to be “ An association of churches” to avoid filing 990s. I have asked reporters to dig into why the IRS implemented that exemption. Were politicians behind it who were lobbied by religious orgs?

@Josephi28296543RZIM pretends like the RICO was a private matter w/ Ravi, unrelated to RZIM itself, yet @abdumurray consulted with RICO Atty. Brian Kelly. What other employee in this world gets help from their employer's general counsel on private matters? The cover-up here is so dirty.

@Josephi28296543: It's clear there's no defined boundaries between what is "RZIM" & what is "the Zacharias Family". RZIM Board Members, RZIM lawyers & RZIM staff/nannies float back & forth between being "RZIM" or being "Just a Zacharias family friend" depending on the circumstances. So dirty.

 

Edited by Howl
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The Wartburg Watch has weighed in on Kanakuk Kamps & Joe White's professed ignorance of Newman's predation. 

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[Dee writes] I am going to say something which may get people mad at me. I find it hard how anyone could knowingly support a pedophile. White wanted to have this pedophile with him to rehabilitate him. This causes me to have many questions about White. He claims to have been close to Newman but also claims never to have seen any untoward actions. I must admit I have a hard time believing him and I wonder…but it is best to stop here.

 

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From Dee at Wartburg Watch:  "This causes me to have many questions about White. He claims to have been close to Newman but also claims never to have seen any untoward actions."

WTAF!  Parents. Were. Repeatedly. Reporting. Newman's. Pedophile. Behavior.  This went on over a long period of time.  Some was zero-tolerance behavior (like nudity) that was expressly prohibited in their own guidelines. 

Edited by Howl
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  • 2 weeks later...

I don't think this has been mentioned on FJ yet.

Richard Daschbach (formerly The Reverend, defrocked by the Catholic Church in 2018) has been charged with multiple counts of child sex abuse. He ran a home in Timor-Leste for orphans and sucked in a tonne of cash as donations. His position as a priest made him revered in his local communities. 15 very brave young women have come forward to accuse him. Links to news articles below.

I don't know much about this case, but I really don't understand how he managed to maintain his position in the children's home if he was defrocked after confessing to child abuse. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

The extent of the Kamp Kanakuk abuse, the cover up, resistance to calling police and notifying parents...is so typical.  The scale of abuse is not. 

Quote

The prosecutor estimated the total number of victims could be in the “hundreds,” and NDAs prevented most of the plaintiffs from sharing their stories. 

New Witnesses Allege Kanakuk Kamps Tried to Cover Up Child Sex Abuse Experts say the FBI should investigate possible child trafficking.

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However, no camp leadership has resigned, been fired, or been held accountable for their inaction towards a decade of Newman’s nudity and parental complaints, even though they promoted Newman and made him the focal point of promotional materials.

 

 

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17 hours ago, Howl said:

The extent of the Kamp Kanakuk abuse, the cover up, resistance to calling police and notifying parents...is so typical.  The scale of abuse is not. 

I have to wonder if part of the problem was the fact that for many years the state of Missouri has turned a blind eye to anything that was "faith-based."

I hope that the new legislation dealing with religious boarding schools can be extended to places like Kamp Kanakuk. Clearly, a major investigation is warranted. 

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Holy Schmoley Big Frijole is this ever off the damn rails. Click on the newspaper article in the tweet for the completely bizarre details. 

 

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17 hours ago, Howl said:

Holy Schmoley Big Frijole is this ever off the damn rails. Click on the newspaper article in the tweet for the completely bizarre details. 

 

If your device won't let you follow links:

https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article251069219.html

Kansas Rep. Mark Samsel arrested for battery after physical altercation with student
BY SARAH RITTER AND JONATHAN SHORMAN
APRIL 30, 2021 02:15 PM, UPDATED MAY 01, 2021 08:12 PM

Kansas state Rep. Mark Samsel was arrested on charges of misdemeanor battery on Thursday after getting into a physical altercation with a student while substitute teaching in Wellsville.

Samsel, 36, was booked into the Franklin County Adult Detention Center after 3:30 p.m. Thursday. He has since been released on $1,000 bond, Sheriff Jeff Richards said.

Superintendent Ryan Bradbury said that Samsel will no longer be allowed to work for the district.

On Wednesday, Samsel, R-Wellsville, was substitute teaching at the Wellsville school district’s secondary school. Throughout the day, high school students began recording videos of the lawmaker talking about suicide, sex, masturbation, God and the Bible.

In one video shared with The Star, Samsel tells students about “a sophomore who’s tried killing himself three times,” adding that it was because “he has two parents and they’re both females.”

“He’s a foster kid. His alternatives in life were having no parents or foster care parents who are gay,” Samsel tells students. “How do you think I’m going to feel if he commits suicide? Awful.”

In another video, Samsel is recorded telling students, “make babies. Who likes making babies? That feels good, doesn’t it? Procreate ... You haven’t masturbated? Don’t answer that question....God already knows.”

Videos shared with The Star — by parents of students in the class — show Samsel focusing most of his attention on one male student. Both Samsel and the student paced around the classroom, talking back and forth. Samsel is shown following the student around and grabbing him. In one video, he puts his arms around the student and says that he was being hard on him.

At one point, Samsel tells the student, “You’re about ready to anger me and get the wrath of God. Do you believe me when I tell you that God has been speaking to me?” He then pushes him, and the student runs to the other side of the classroom.

“You should run and scream.”

In another video, he tells students, “Class, you have permission to kick him in the balls.”

Parents told The Star that Samsel “put hands on the student” and allegedly kneed him in the crotch. In a video apparently taken immediately after the incident, the student is shown on the ground. Samsel is standing over him and says, “did it hurt?”

He then asks him why he is about to start crying, pats him on the shoulder and apologizes, and then says he can “go to the nurse, she can check it for you.”

Samsel addresses another student and says, “do you want to check his nuts for him, please?”

The videos angered dozens of parents, who felt that their children were put in danger. Samsel works with students in several capacities, including as a referee and through church groups, parents said.

“I’m a concerned parent who doesn’t want this swept under the rug,” said father Joshua Zeck. “He’s around kids all the time. He’s a state representative. He’s in a position of power.”

Zeck said that he felt Samsel was “bullying” the student.

In a message to families, Bradbury said that the situation is being investigated.

“Student safety has and always will be our first priority,” he said.

Samsel is the second Kansas lawmaker to be arrested this year. Former Senate Majority Leader Gene Suellentrop, a Wichita Republican, was charged with felony eluding and fleeing from police and also faces misdemeanor charges of drunk and reckless driving after allegedly driving the wrong way on Topeka highways on March 16. He was forced to step down from his leadership post.

On Twitter, Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas posted: “What the hell is going on with the #KSLEG this session?” He added that Samsel “shouldn’t just be terminated from substituting. He should be blocked from being around all kids.”

The district reported the incident, and an investigation was conducted by the Wellsville Police Department and Franklin County Sheriff’s Office. After the investigation, Samsel was arrested for misdemeanor battery, according to a news release.

In a Snapchat post shared with The Star, Samsel wrote that “it was all planned.”

“Every little bit of it. That’s right. The kids and I planned ALL this to SEND A MESSAGE about art, mental health, teenage suicide, how we treat our educators and one another. To who? Parents. And grandparents. And all of Wellsville,” he posted.

He wrote that he gave one particular student “hope.”

“I went to jail for battery. Does that really make me a criminal? Time will tell.”

He said that the incident happened during fifth period, and that the classes before that hour went as planned, and he shared the same lesson in each one. He said what happened was “exactly what God planned. The kids were in on it. Not all of them. But most.”

Parents told The Star that their children were upset by what took place that day.

“He’s a leader. He’s in the statehouse. He’s somebody in a position of power. And he did not do right by those kids,” Zeck said. “A lot of kids were affected by that.”

Jessica Roberts, a mother with two children who attend the school, said that she is now more concerned about Samsel’s involvement in youth sports and activities.

“I think he shouldn’t be around children,” she said.

In another video, Samsel is shown telling the student about “distractions from the devil,” and then grabs him from behind and lifts him off his feet.

In a different clip, he tells the student to go to the office.

“You were not following — not my rules — God’s rules right now,” he tells the student. “You better take a Bible.”

“Keep denying God, keep denying God, see how it’s going to turn out,” he told the student.

He is also shown in a video instructing the student and one of his classmates to go outside, hold hands and run around the track, seemingly as punishment.

“Do you think we want to do this? No, we had a lesson to do. Is it kind of funny? Yeah. Are they ever going to learn? God only knows,” he says while watching the two students run outside.

Videos show Samsel’s classroom in chaos as he talks about the devil, God and how the Bible was edited.

“Are you doing the Lord’s work as you’re listening to the devil’s music?” he asks a student.

And he continually references suicide, and tells the class, “I’m not going to lose one more of my kids to suicide. Are we clear?”

House Speaker Ron Ryckman told The Star that “we’re not yet aware of the details and in the process of gathering as much information as we can.”

Samsel, who is an attorney, is in his second term in the House, where he’s occasionally courted controversy. In February, he was one of just 13 lawmakers to vote against a bill that would have ended an exemption for spouses from the state’s sexual battery law.

Ahead of the vote, he gave a speech in which he appeared to express concerns about criminalizing sexual relations between spouses.

“To me, it gets to what does the sanctity of marriage mean?” Samsel was quoted as saying, according to the Kansas Reflector. “And I’m single, so I’m not the best person to speak to this. But when you do get married, what does that mean? And what implied consent are you giving?”

More recently, Samsel raised the possibility of impeaching Suellentrop, but the state constitution doesn’t allow the impeachment of legislators.

“If we’re going to be in a leadership position, who’s most important that’s watching us? To me, it’s the kids,” Samsel told The Star recently when discussing the Suellentrop case.

“And when they look across our country right now and see that you can do things under bathroom stalls or whatever else, make up an excuse, deny immediately and then it turns out, yeah, you were kind of guilty — the process happens way too many times and it’s not been done the right way.”


 

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On 4/27/2021 at 10:23 PM, Howl said:

The extent of the Kamp Kanakuk abuse, the cover up, resistance to calling police and notifying parents...is so typical.  The scale of abuse is not. 

New Witnesses Allege Kanakuk Kamps Tried to Cover Up Child Sex Abuse Experts say the FBI should investigate possible child trafficking.

 

 

I truly do not understand how the Kanakuk story has not made bigger headlines. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Katie Porter was interviewed on the Julie Roys podcast recently, and her detailed statement is here:  My Statement Regarding Dr. Art Azurdia’s Abuse   For the audio and transcript of this episode of the podcast, use this link: My Abuser is Returning to Ministry

This is worth a visit, because as Katie Porter describes what transpired with her abuser, she's her own witness to a master class in the psychological grooming used by her abuser (Dr. Art Azurdia, then a professor at Western Seminary in Portland, OR) and abusers in general. In particular,  experienced Christian abusers tell the victim that the abuse is somehow special, permitted or even approved by God. 

I'm blown away by how courageous she is to make this incredibly detailed statement public. 

First paragraph of her statement:

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My name is Katie Roberts, and I am writing this statement to bring to light the spiritual, psychological, and sexual abuse that I suffered at the hands of my professor, Dr. Art Azurdia, when I was a student at Western Seminary in Portland, OR from 2013–2018. I am making this statement at this time because Dr. Azurdia has returned to an influential ministry position and I am concerned that others may be in danger of suffering a similar experience due to the lack of public exposure of his abuse.

 

 

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Ah, good old Western Seminary, home of Garry Breshears. He was Mark Driscoll’s mentor (and also mentor of an abusive Driscoll-wannabe pastor of the church I attended at the time). He also told me that I had likely been ritually abused, based on some of the mental health issues I confided to him at a Western Sem conference for people ministering to hurting people. This was mid- to late-2000s.

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15 hours ago, Jasmar said:

He also told me that I had likely been ritually abused, based on some of the mental health issues I confided to him at a Western Sem conference for people ministering to hurting people.

I'm mentally clicking on the facebook hug emoji for you. 

I had never heard of Western Seminary until now.

I came across the original information on twitter.  Because sin flattening does exist, several men responding to the Julie Roys thread on twitter were extremely critical and contemptuous of Katie Roberts, who they claimed is just as bad as Art Azurdia because Katie taught a women's Bible class while "committing adultery."   The subtext is that she went public and called out Azurdia as a predator, while Azurdia is trying to restart his predator-pastor career in a target-rich environment. 

Also, as Porter and her husband processed what had happened, they came to understand what had transpired was abuse, and they began to frame the entire episode as abuse rather than adultery, and reading between the lines, have lost a lot of support because of it.  The reason? It frames Art Azurdia as an abuser/predator, rather than the preferred sin and redemption model, as in, I SAID I WAS SORRY (for that rape, molestation, spiritual/psychological/sexual abuse) OKAY? AND NOW I'M MOVING ON. Satan can't keep a good man down! 

If you read all of Katie's incredibly detailed statement, it's clear both The Gospel Coalition and Western Seminary tried to shield Azurdia while pretending to address the issue. 

Edited by Howl
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