Fundy Walk of Shame: Scandals and Crimes

[Howl]

Quote

The investigation also revealed that some former employees had knowledge of the misconduct and failed to appropriately respond to the information at the time,” the brief said, noting Ogden’s 1993 arrest as well.

Bloody hell.  He was arrested for molesting boys (presumably) and nobody...?

[Howl]

Such powerful victim testimony.  Link in the tweet,  also here: Robert Shiflet, Former Denton Bible Church Youth Pastor, Got a Plea Deal But His Victims Had Plenty to Say

One of the victims strongly calls out Shiflet's wife, who STILL supports her husband in the face of overwhelming evidence, as being complicit in the abuse.  Tom Shiflet,  brother of perp Robert Shiflet,  has also been accused or pedophilia. 

 

[Howl]

I did a search for "adoption" and there has been quite a bit posted in this thread, and this is certainly a criminal act under the guise of Christian charity, so it goes here.  If you want to talk about Christian child trafficking and child theft...

 

This infant was orphaned in a bombing in Afghanistan, but relatives were found.  The relatives were a young Afghan couple who were raising her with love. 

 

Link to the Associated Press article here: Afghan Couple Accuse US Marine of Abducting Their Baby

Pretty much straight up child theft by fanatical Christian couple -- no doubt about it.  And now that the Christian couple has the 1-year old in their custody here in the US, it's unlikely the Afghan couple will be able to get her back, although I hope they do. 

Maj. Joshua Mast  should face a Marine court martial, lose his commission and any benefits from the Marine Corps. and hopefully spend some time in the brig because massive fraud and straight up lying were involved in the theft of the child. 

That's what should happen, but probably nothing will. 

 

 

Edited October 20, 2022 by Howl

[hoipolloi]

8 hours ago, Howl said:

Maj. Joshua Mast  should face a Marine court martial, lose his commission and any benefits from the Marine Corps. and hopefully spend some time in the brig because massive fraud and straight up lying were involved in the theft of the child. 

All of this. What a fucking asshole.

Iʻm glad to see that WaPo is also reporting on this story as is the Daily Mail - they have some photos of the asshat, Joshua Mast.

[Howl]

7 hours ago, hoipolloi said:

Iʻm glad to see that WaPo is also reporting on this story as is the Daily Mail 

Yes, it's been picked up by most of the major media outlets. I hope that will lead to even more coverage and put a major spotlight on Mast's actions. 

Edited October 21, 2022 by Howl

[hoipolloi]

Mast should be prosecuted and receive a dishonorable discharge from the USMC. From all accounts, including his & asshat brother's, Mast used his status within the USMC to accomplish the kidnapping and accompanying fraud.

[Howl]

These damn youth pastors - it just never stops: Former West Columbia Youth Pastor Accused of Sexually Abusing Teen Boy

Warning: this article has graphic details

Interesting:  A brand new pastor comes on board and fires this pedo guy within two weeks.  

"Reached by the Chronicle, John Yorio, the church’s pastor, confirmed that Keech was employed as a youth pastor there until he was fired in March 2021.

“I had just started two weeks beforehand,” Yorio said. “And there were some things that were in the personnel file that I found to be not conducive of the personality and character of somebody serving in ministry. So we fired him.”

Yorio said he could not comment further on what caused Keech to be fired.

“What I can say is that we, from then up until recently, have cooperated with the Lexington County Sheriff's Department,” the pastor said. “They have all the information we have.”

[CTRLZero]

1 hour ago, Howl said:

Interesting:  A brand new pastor comes on board and fires this pedo guy within two weeks.  

The new pastor found disturbing information in the guy’s personnel file, so the previous pastor apparently knew.  I wonder who the previous pastor was, and who else knew but didn’t contact authorities.  Argh. 
The timeline is a little difficult for me to follow.  It looks like he continued the abuse after he was fired?  Maybe the article has the year wrong.  Anyway, glad the new pastor did the right thing. 

Quote:  “The release states that the alleged victim recounted sexual encounters with Creech stretching from July 2019 to February 2022.”

“According to Keech’s Facebook page, he began working at Saluda River Baptist Church in April 2019.

Reached by the Chronicle, John Yorio, the church’s pastor, confirmed that Keech was employed as a youth pastor there until he was fired in March 2021.”

[Howl]

This case has more turns than a barrel full of snakes:  Sills files suit against SBC and 11 other defendants, claiming his relationship with Lyell was consensual and he became a ‘scapegoat’ in the SBC’s sexual abuse crisis  A poster on the twitter thread where I came across this noted that "...they filed in Alabama, which has no anti-SLAPP laws in place. That’s no coincidence IMO. States like that are considered safe havens for frivolous defamation suits."

Sills claims he never had sex with that woman (no intercourse!), that he broke off the consensual relationship and she continued to pursue him. 

Jennifer Lyell claims that the relationship was NOT consensual and that Sills threatened and coerced her and there was violence and threats of violence and that the relationship was clearly sexual abuse.  

This all happened when Jennifer Lyell was a student at the seminary and David Sills was her professor. 

This is how the SBC trashed Ms. Lyell: 

SBC report shows how five words turn abuse victim from ‘survivor’ to ‘whore’

<snip>

The report shows how five words — the substitution of three words for two — inflicted grievous harm on Lyell. It provides a metaphor for the SBC leaders’ attitude toward sexual abuse within the convention.

Baptist Press declined to publish Lyell’s own account of her experience of sexual abuse. Initially, the first sentence of a draft of an article about Sills’ actions said she was “sexually abused.” Ultimately, however, the article published by BP said she was involved in a “morally inappropriate relationship” with Sills.

 

 

 

Edited November 23, 2022 by Howl

[hoipolloi]

Meanwhile, Matt Chandler returns to the pulpit amid a standing ovation and broad statements of exoneration from the churchʻs board of elders.

Quote

As Mr. Chandler left the stage after his first emotional appearance, the band began to play a contemporary version of a Christmas carol, starting midsong with words that were also emblazoned on a banner on the church’s facade: “O come, let us adore him.”

🤮🤮🤮🤮

 

[Wolf in Sheeples’ Clothing]

1 hour ago, hoipolloi said:

 

As Mr. Chandler left the stage after his first emotional appearance, the band began to play a contemporary version of a Christmas carol, starting midsong with words that were also emblazoned on a banner on the church’s facade: “O come, let us adore him.”

I’m sorry… what!?! Do they worship this Chandler guy or Jesus?

 

[Howl]

5 hours ago, hoipolloi said:

Meanwhile, Matt Chandler returns to the pulpit amid a standing ovation and broad statements of exoneration from the churchʻs board of elders.

and 

4 hours ago, Wolf in Sheeples’ Clothing said:

I’m sorry… what!?! Do they worship this Chandler guy or Jesus?

Cult of personality, with the emphasis on cult.  Also, Hey! A real man's gotta be a man (nudge nudge wink wink), and he's a REAL man, so all good!  

snips from the New York Times article linked by @hoipolloi:  "...he tearfully told his congregation in August that he had been involved in a relationship online with a woman who was not his wife. The relationship was not 'romantic or sexual' but 'unguarded and unwise,' he said then, and included 'coarse and foolish joking that’s unbefitting of someone in my position.'"

Here's a possible scenario:  The NYT article noted that a woman confronted Chandler about his DMs on Instagram with her friend.  The explicitly sexual content of those DMs would be radioactive for Chandler's carefully cultivated public image and fatal for his speaking career, and the friend threatened to take everything public. 

Chandler "confessed" to the Board ("Hey guys, I've got a problem that could take us all down").  A damage control strategy was implemented STAT in consultation with image restoration professionals, along with a timeline.  Professionals scrub incriminating posts from social media  so no one knows (or will ever know) the exact content of the "vaguely defined online misbehavior."

Final step in successful image restoration is the performative wife display "Toward the end of the service on Sunday, Mr. Chandler’s wife, their three children and his wife’s parents joined him onstage next to a screen projection thanking him “for two decades of bold teaching, faithful leadership and authentic pastoring.”

 

 

Edited December 5, 2022 by Howl

[noseybutt]

Messages not sexual but to someone underage would also fit the ticket. Then there would be nothing to scrub—just keep identity of recipient secret.

[hoipolloi]

3 hours ago, noseybutt said:

Messages not sexual but to someone underage would also fit the ticket.

Agree. Whatever happened, we know it must have been significantly worse than whatever the cult said about it.

Chances are good it broke one or more laws as well.

[noseybutt]

24 minutes ago, hoipolloi said:

Agree. Whatever happened, we know it must have been significantly worse than whatever the cult said about it.

Chances are good it broke one or more laws as well.

The official story is that someone spoke up on behalf of "a friend." I'm guessing the relationship was much closer than that. 

 

[Howl]

2 hours ago, noseybutt said:

The official story is that someone spoke up on behalf of "a friend." I'm guessing the relationship was much closer than that. 

What an interesting point!   That also prompted me to recall this odd detail in NYT article: "Mr. Chandler said in August that a woman had approached him this year in the church foyer to confront him with concerns about his direct messages on Instagram with one of her friends."

This article does not say that the woman was a church member and why is the location of the interaction, the church foyer, important?  I'm  guessing she isn't a church member and the church foyer is where she managed to track him down.  I'd suspect there are layers of people who protect Chandler from random interactions -- it's not like you can walk into his office for a chat.

I'm also wondering if this was a very loud public confrontation. 

Now I really want to know what was going on that "wasn't romantic or sexual" but really, really naughty.  Oooooh, fetish maybe?  

[noseybutt]

Yeah the script on this one is odd.

A woman confronts him in the foyer on behalf of “a friend.”

Risk management kicks in and he is sent on sabbatical which is 3 months of red blooded activities such as hunting (revealed via his own social media account).

On return, it’s not just his wife on stage, but also kids and parents-in-law.

My speculation was underage grooming because of the poor boundaries around the beginnings of his relationship with his wife.

There is another piece to this that is a head scratcher. I know he claims he was completely healed from the brain cancer, but my recollection of his diagnosis is that complete remission is unlikely. Also, it’s a frontal lobe issue. The odds of him become more regulated, rather than increasingly disinhibited, seem low.

Dang. Risk management for these dudes has to be a lucrative occupation.

[hoipolloi]

According to this article, shortly after the LOA began, Chandler's buddy, Preston Sprinkle, shared on his Patreon that this was really a nothingburger:

Quote

 

...Preston Sprinkle sent a letter to his Patreon supporters claiming that after speaking with Chandler twice, “The church’s messaging framed it in some pretty negative terms that could be misconstrued.” According to Sprinkle, “The ‘coarse joking’ was jokes about alcohol … and the big issue was that his DM relationship seemed too ‘familiar’ for someone that he didn’t know terribly well in person.”

Sprinkle said: “To be clear, the woman he was messaging wasn’t at all offended and told Matt, ‘Don’t you dare apologize; you did nothing wrong!’ It was the woman’s friend, who lives by a very strict Billy Graham type of rule, that was offended that Matt was DMing a married woman (even though Matt’s wife and the woman’s husband were fully aware of it).”

 

 

[Katzchen24]

Brian Houston of Hillsong infamy is currently appearing in court in Sydney on a charge of concealing a serious indictable offence of another person (in this case, concealing the repeated sexual abuse of a minor by his father, Frank Houston). It's disgusting but typical that abuse of this nature was concealed. From the Guardian article of 7th Dec 2022 (bolding is mine):

Spoiler

Sengstock said when he confronted Frank Houston over his abuse, Frank Houston apologised, sought forgiveness and “was emotional”, but, Sengstock said, “without being sorry for the damage he caused, only that it might be exposed”.

The court has previously heard that in 1999 Sengstock signed a blank napkin at a meeting with Frank Houston at a McDonald’s restaurant in exchange for agreeing to accept a $10,000 payment, which he described as him being “paid for my silence”.

When the money had not arrived weeks later, Sengstock called Brian Houston who, Sengstock said, told him: “You know this is all your fault, you tempted my father.” The money was ultimately paid."

I posted something over on the Hillsong thread but that has been archived so thought I'd put it here too.

[Katzchen24]

Brian Houston apparently thought it was likely his father was a serial pedophile. Houston didn't care enough to do anything about those past abuses. They certainly didn't mean enough to him to make sure future victims of abuse under his own tenure in charge of Hillsong were supported. What a revolting POS.

 

[Coconut Flan]

Carry on here: