Missionary with bogus medical practice linked to deaths of Ugandan children

[DarkAnts]

2 hours ago, Ozlsn said:

How about doing a fund raiser for Medecins San Frontiers or a local Ugandan organisation?  I understand the wanting to help, I don't understand the "so I'll set up my own NGO and run a school/hospital/whatever! mentality".  I mean if she really wanted to work as a medical professional in Uganda (or anywhere) she could have gotten training, gotten experience, found out more about where she wanted to work, learned local languages, etc etc. She could have worked with one of the many, many NGOs or actual government run things already in existence.  

The current version of her NGO is run out of a government clinic. I am not sure how it works but my guess is that the NGO provides things the government won't pay for.

[Howl]

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In the 1950s, Elliot traveled to declare Christ to the Huaorani in Ecuador.

I was just reading about his wife, their utterly tormented courtship and eventual marriage.  I came away feeling that Elliot was gay for sure; she claims they had a hot marriage in the few years before he was killed.   Was that discussion here on fj? 

[Pecansforeveryone]

Elizabeth Elliot wrote several books talking about her marriage to Jim. She always kept the surname Elliot despite re-marrying twice and for longer than she was married to Jim. Yes, their courtship was long and tortured. 

[Marmion]

So I just did some research with a search engine, to see what developments there have been in this case , and discovered that Renee Bach is being represented by none other than David C. Gibbs III .  For those who might not know whom he is , here is some background information .  

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On October 20, 2015, a lawsuit was filed against the Institute in Basic Life Principles and its board members, which included Gil Bates. The lawsuit was filed by five women who claimed the experienced "sexual abuse, sexual harassment, and inappropriate/unauthorized touching" while working at IBLP. David Gibbs III, son of IBLP member David Gibbs, Jr., owned one of the law firms that represented the case. This lawsuit followed an internal investigation that IBLP conducted about sexual abuse allegations in 2014, which the plaintiffs felt was not handled properly.[15]After the initial internal investagtion, IBLP's founder, Bill Gothard, had resigned on March 5, 2014.[16

https://fundamentalists.fandom.com/wiki/Gil_Bates   He's the son of David C. Gibbs Jr.  

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Attorney David Gibbs, Jr. is a longtime friend of Gothard's Institute. Though he has never been a member of the board, he is a popular speaker at ATI conferences. From the IBLP website:

"David Gibbs attended his first Basic Seminar in the early 1970’s. He marveled at what he heard and purposed to apply it to his life. He went on to become a lawyer and founded the Christian Law Association, which serves hundreds of churches without charge. He has become a conference favorite..."

 

https://heresyintheheartland.blogspot.com/2014/03/david-gibbs-jr-investigating-gothard.html   

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Through his work and leadership with his father David C. Gibbs Jr.’s organization, the Christian Law Association (CLA), Gibbs III built a career out of defending accused child abusers. And as recently as last year, Gibbs presented sermons at churches arguing that not only parents, but schools, churches, and even complete strangers have a “fundamental right” to child corporal punishment—which he referred to as “child-beating.”

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/leavingfundamentalism/2016/05/31/the-fixer-christian-lawyers-history-defending-abusers/   And now this same man has taken up the job of doing damage control for Renee Bach ; even seemingly alluding to to those such as us , whom have been posting on the topic .   

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For the last ten years, Renee Bach and Serving His Children have served malnourished children in Uganda. Reputational terrorists are attacking Renee Bach and Serving His Children with false allegations using the platform of social media to create a false reality without factual evidence. These escalating attacks are currently threatening the personal safety of Ms. Bach and her family, as people are believing these lies about her and the services provided by the organization. Several media outlets are escalating these safety risks by globally sharing grossly false information.

Attorney David Gibbs III, National Center for Life and Liberty, is representing Renee Bach and Serving His Children. “It is sad when people spend their time attacking the good work of others. Renee is innocent of the nonsensical allegations being leveled at her by people who are leveraging the power of social media for their own agenda without verification of facts. Their defamation, libel, and slander of her in these online attacks bounce around the world with no accountability and no evidence. The attackers are using the Internet to crate a crisis that does not actually exist.” 

https://www.ncll.org/news-alerts/help-defend-the-truth-renee-bach-and-serving-his-children  

[Ozlsn]

52 minutes ago, Marmion said:

Chau saw Elliot as a hero. Elliot and his colleagues are still revered in some Christian circles today. Admirers have produced books, movies, and a musical about them.

It's probably wrong that I laughed at them producing a musical... but yeah I did. We find that to the list of "bizarre things I am unlikely to seek out but would totally go to if they are near to me out of sheer curiosity."

[Marmion]

7 minutes ago, Ozlsn said:

It's probably wrong that I laughed at them producing a musical... but yeah I did. We find that to the list of "bizarre things I am unlikely to seek out but would totally go to if they are near to me out of sheer curiosity."

I believe that I have found it in its entirety here .  

Spoiler

 

Interestingly , it seems to feature an entirely ethnic Chinese cast .   Perhaps , in some cases , this story has inspired not only a white savior complex , but also an Asian savior complex .  Like , I do find it to be admirable when people sincerely wish to help improve the lives of others . However , I also feel that they should heed the words of Matthew 10:16  .   https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+10%3A16&version=NKJV  

[Ozlsn]

51 minutes ago, DarkAnts said:

The current version of her NGO is run out of a government clinic. I am not sure how it works but my guess is that the NGO provides things the government won't pay for.

Ah, that sheds more light on something from the last podcast episode that I was wondering about, which was the murder of the doctor who had taken over the running of the clinic. So about a decade ago I was doing a course, and I got chatting with the woman sitting next to me, who was from Uganda. I forget how it came up, but she mentioned that when you worked for private/govt partnerships like the one Serving His Children had become it is often the case that you become the target of people seeking a cut of the perceived wealth being brought in from the NGO. Her actual words were "if you don't give them money then they send you a bullet, and if you still don't - they shoot you." To be honest I had forgotten all about that conversation until I heard the podcast episode, and then I was trying to remember what she'd said the circumstances were. Working for a solely government owned clinic wouldn't make you a target, because usually the cut was already coming out, and they wouldn't target foreigners because of the attention that would bring - but a local, working in that situation? Absolutely, and if you were too honest, and didn't want to pay then your only options were to ignore the threats or leave. This may of course not be the case with the murder of this particular doctor, but it certainly triggered the memory of that conversation for me. 

[LacyMay]

5 hours ago, Ozlsn said:

But none of that would have given her the ego (or CV) boost of being CEO of her very own organisation when she was barely out of high school.

I'm not defending what she did. But I think it's really important to note that this is not a "Renne Bach Problem" this is a widespread issue. 

She is not the first young and unqualified white evangelical to trot over to Africa volunteer for a few months, decide they want to be their own boss and start their own NGO (Katie Davis and Kelsey Nielsen both founded and ran their own NGOs). She certainly won't be the last. Missions  are an industry and in some church circles viewed as a right of passage or essential to being a good Christian. This is discussed on depth in episode 5 of the podcast and something I've seen first hand (I actually know someone who did a mission in Jinja where SHC was located) 

This is also why I'm very hesitant to try and frame her as having some sort of personality disorder because in all likelihood she didn't. She was young, naive and in an environment where what she did was normal. Remember she was able to procure funding, staff, volunteers, medical supplies etc. She had support from numerous churches. 

What she did was wrong. It shouldn't have happened. But she is a small part of a much larger picture. 

 

[hoipolloi]

4 hours ago, Pecansforeveryone said:

Elizabeth Elliot wrote several books talking about her marriage to Jim. She always kept the surname Elliot despite re-marrying twice and for longer than she was married to Jim. Yes, their courtship was long and tortured. 

Elizabeth Elliot made considerable bank from Jim's name despite, as you say, being married twice after Jim's death in the "mission" field. 

 

[formergothardite]

11 hours ago, Howl said:

I was just reading about his wife, their utterly tormented courtship and eventual marriage.  I came away feeling that Elliot was gay for sure; she claims they had a hot marriage in the few years before he was killed.   Was that discussion here on fj? 

When I read the book as a teenager I remember thinking that it didn't sound like two people in love trying to figure out how to make a relationship work. It sounded like she was crazy obsessed with him and he didn't even really like her as a person and tried everything to get out of having to get married to her. Someone needed to sit her down and have a "he is just not that into you" talk. 

. 

[Howl]

 

1 hour ago, formergothardite said:

It sounded like she was crazy obsessed with him and he didn't even really like her as a person and tried everything to get out of having to get married to her. Someone needed to sit her down and have a "he is just not that into you" talk. 

Yes, it's quite bizarre.  Definitely not the love story it was cracked up to be (or was it?).  They had a 10-month-old daughter and were married barely three years when he was killed.  After Elisabeth died in 2015, the daughter found a trove of journals and letters between Jim and Elisabeth and wrote about it in a book published in 2019 called Devotedly: The Personal Letters and Love Story of Jim and Elisabeth Elliot, so still making bank! 

I dropped in to Good Reads to check out the reviews.  The reviews give a peek into the missionary mystique/martyr worship and how much these two are revered. There's a funny one-star review -- the author of that review was upset because there was some  premarital hand holding and possible kissing, so insufficiently chaste during courtship, hence fallen idols.  

Edited July 19, 2020 by Howl

[Giraffe]

I haven’t given the Eliots much thought after leaving fundygelicalism. I’m going to have to go search on them some more. They were definitely nearly worshipped any church I’ve been part of. 

[hoipolloi]

5 hours ago, Howl said:

There's a funny one-star review -- the author of that review was upset because there was some  premarital hand holding and possible kissing, so insufficiently chaste during courtship, hence fallen idols.  

If you're citing the one I'm thinking of, that guy may be right about one thing:

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I doubt very much that Jim and Elisabeth Elliot would have wanted their daughter to publish a book chronicling their very private, most intimate thoughts – especially thoughts and desires that didn’t exactly honor the Lord, much less one another.

From what I can tell, Elisabeth spent her life after Jim's death carefully building & maintaining her public persona. Thus, I could see that she, especially, would not have wanted any contradictory material from her earlier life to be broadcast. Who knows what Jim would have wanted, given that it now appears he had mixed feelings about marriage?

Will try to read Devotedly if only because it may be the only honest view anyone will likely get of Elliot Inc. The chances of there ever being a biography that's not a hagiography are very small.

[Marmion]

I had  always been curious as to exactly why , from the standpoint of the warriors at the time , were those missionaries slain .  All accounts by evangelicals , and especially Calvinists , whom I suspect just chalk it up to being due to the total depravity which they believe the unregenerate are characterized by , leave out any motive .  Well according to these accounts , the homicide was due to an unfortunate misunderstanding .  

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After seeing Nankiwi in the plane, a small group of Huaorani decided to make the trip to Palm Beach, and left the following morning, January 7. On the way, they encountered Nankiwi and the girl, returning unescorted. The girl's brother, Nampa, was furious at this, and to defuse the situation and divert attention from himself, Nankiwi claimed that the foreigners had attacked them on the beach, and in their haste to flee, they had been separated from their chaperone. Gikita, a senior member of the group whose experience with outsiders had taught him that they could not be trusted, recommended that they kill the foreigners. The return of the older woman and her account of the friendliness of the missionaries was not enough to dissuade them, and they soon continued toward the beach.[2

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Auca#First_visit   

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According to Scott Wallace, American missionaries in Ecuador attempted to contact the Huaorani in the 1950s with airdropped gifts. However, the photographs included in the package baffled the Huaorani (since they had never seen photographs before), and they believed the images were evil magical creations. When some Huaorani tribesmen found some missionaries who had landed a plane on a riverbank, the tribesmen speared the Westerners to death

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huaorani_people#First_encounter,_as_told_by_Scott_Wallace  So in short , these Huaorani tribesmen were simply being overly suspicious , and superstitious .  

Edited July 19, 2020 by Marmion

[DarkAnts]

20 hours ago, LacyMay said:

I'm not defending what she did. But I think it's really important to note that this is not a "Renne Bach Problem" this is a widespread issue. 

She is not the first young and unqualified white evangelical to trot over to Africa volunteer for a few months, decide they want to be their own boss and start their own NGO (Katie Davis and Kelsey Nielsen both founded and ran their own NGOs). She certainly won't be the last. Missions  are an industry and in some church circles viewed as a right of passage or essential to being a good Christian. This is discussed on depth in episode 5 of the podcast and something I've seen first hand (I actually know someone who did a mission in Jinja where SHC was located) 

This is also why I'm very hesitant to try and frame her as having some sort of personality disorder because in all likelihood she didn't. She was young, naive and in an environment where what she did was normal. Remember she was able to procure funding, staff, volunteers, medical supplies etc. She had support from numerous churches. 

What she did was wrong. It shouldn't have happened. But she is a small part of a much larger picture. 

 

It is a wide spread problem. She is just one of many NGOs that are doing this. She is just the one that went viral. I don't know if she has a personality disorder. I do think it's complex. From listening to the podcasts, I will say that she sounds like a mean girl. Any criticism she was given was seen attack. The story for how she started her NGO is different in the podcasts than in Levy article in the NYT. In the podcasts, she said it feel into her lap. Another NGO said they were leaving and gave her the keys to their building. I honestly don't trust anything she says about this point just based on that.

[hoipolloi]

 

20 hours ago, LacyMay said:

She is not the first young and unqualified white evangelical to trot over to Africa volunteer for a few months, decide they want to be their own boss and start their own NGO (Katie Davis and Kelsey Nielsen both founded and ran their own NGOs). She certainly won't be the last. Missions  are an industry and in some church circles viewed as a right of passage or essential to being a good Christian. This is discussed on depth in episode 5 of the podcast and something I've seen first hand (I actually know someone who did a mission in Jinja where SHC was located) 

Renee seems to have adopted the widespread fundie Christian delusion that a SOTDRT education + Jeebus prepares anyone for a successful life or career, in any field they choose.

I'm only part way through listening to the series. Nonetheless, because I've been keeping tabs on American Talibangelicals for years, the classic self-justifying, the Lord-this and the Lord-that fundie language just leaps out of the diary extracts that are read in the podcast. All of the arrogance & delusion is right there, in plain sight, for anyone who's familiar with these people. 

35 minutes ago, DarkAnts said:

I honestly don't trust anything she says about this point just based on that.

Neither do I. At best it's self-serving, and at worst it is lies told to conceal wrong-doing. It was horrifying to hear the radically different versions of the life and death of a 27 yo woman who was one of the first fatalities at Bach's clinic. Renee claimed to have "rescued" the woman, saying that she had been neglected if not abandoned by her family. Her family, when interviewed for the podcast, said that the young woman had some serious physical impairments for much of her life, and that they had cared for as well as they could, including giving her some vital anti-seizure medication. It's not clear but it sounds as though that medication may have been abruptly discontinued when Bach took the woman from her home. 

[katilac]

5 hours ago, DarkAnts said:

Any criticism she was given was seen attack.  

That's probably to be expected, too. So many Christians constantly hear the narrative of how they will be hated by the world, that people will try to tear them and their good works down, that you need to put on the armor of God because every day is a battle, the world is a battlefield and you are under constant attack. It's hard for them to accept criticism, because it's often seen as expected and something to be resisted - of course they are criticizing me, I'm doing the Lord's work. 

[Petronella]

On 7/18/2020 at 10:49 PM, Ozlsn said:

How about doing a fund raiser for Medecins San Frontiers or a local Ugandan organisation?  I understand the wanting to help, I don't understand the "so I'll set up my own NGO and run a school/hospital/whatever! mentality".  I mean if she really wanted to work as a medical professional in Uganda (or anywhere) she could have gotten training, gotten experience, found out more about where she wanted to work, learned local languages, etc etc. She could have worked with one of the many, many NGOs or actual government run things already in existence.  

But none of that would have given her the ego (or CV) boost of being CEO of her very own organisation when she was barely out of high school.

Edited for additional thought: I think it's the difference between wanting to serve and wanting to fix. In serving you turn up to help - but you listen, you ask, you work with people, you don't set up in parallel to/competition with existing outfits. In fixing, you turn up to help but declare that you have all the answers and don't try and work with existing efforts. Sometimes fixing can be useful if it brings focus to an unseen problem- but more often I think it stifles local efforts.

I really, really appreciate this thread.

In recent years, I’ve started appreciating that being a “hero” isn’t really a good goal. I’m working to unpick “doing good“ from “being a hero” without going to the opposite extreme and becoming passive.

The narrative of swanning in and saving people is seductive. It seems obviously good. A critic of the critique might well ask, “Well, do you NOT want them to be helped??” Of course helping is good. But what are the ACTUAL EFFECTS of any specific help? Intentions aren’t magic. What is the ACTUAL result?

I’m learning a lot from thinking about this story.

(Also, just started a thread on Elisabeth Elliot.)

[Pleiades_06]

1 hour ago, Petronella said:

I’ve started appreciating that being a “hero” isn’t really a good goal. I’m working to unpick “doing good“ from “being a hero” without going to the opposite extreme and becoming passive.

Exactly what I was thinking about.  Motives are important. 

[Howl]

On 7/18/2020 at 10:10 PM, LacyMay said:

This is also why I'm very hesitant to try and frame her as having some sort of personality disorder because in all likelihood she didn't.

I'm completely willing to abandon my speculation that she has a personality disorder, but my sticking point is trying to square her being a normal young woman driven by her spiritual ideals to help others with the staggering number of deaths associated with her clinic when there was advanced medical care close by.  

 

Edited July 20, 2020 by Howl

[Petronella]

2 hours ago, Pleiades_06 said:

Exactly what I was thinking about.  Motives are important. 

Well, yes and no. If the motive is self-aggrandizement rather than an actual desire to help, that is indeed a problem. But even a true desire to help can be harmfully and selfishly executed.

[DarkAnts]

The civil case was settled out of court. Renee did not admit to any wrongdoing but is paying two of the mother's close to $9,000 usd. Seems like a small amount for the life of a child.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/jul/28/us-missionary-accused-over-uganda-child-deaths-settles-out-of-court-renee-bach

[Pleiades_06]

1 hour ago, DarkAnts said:

The civil case was settled out of court. Renee did not admit to any wrongdoing but is paying two of the mother's close to $9,000 usd. Seems like a small amount for the life of a child.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/jul/28/us-missionary-accused-over-uganda-child-deaths-settles-out-of-court-renee-bach

I hope the others go ahead and bring her to court as well. 

[Pecansforeveryone]

@DarkAnts I agree this sounds like a pittance for wrongful death on top of the fact that she did not admit wrong doing. Shame on her. 

[hoipolloi]

3 hours ago, DarkAnts said:

Seems like a small amount for the life of a child.

It does. 

2 hours ago, Pleiades_06 said:

I hope the others go ahead and bring her to court as well. 

I had missed the news that Bach dissolved SHC earlier this month -- would that make it harder or impossible for others to sue?