There are women who are STANDING for their marriages. Yes, they are married to disobedient, unfaithful, and difficult husbands [pretty well covers anything and everything a man can do to a woman] but they understand the cost and are willing to obey God instead of listening to those around them encouraging them to take the “easy” way out and get divorced. Several women in the chat room are standing strong in the gap for their husband’s soul and their marriages even though many have told them to divorce their husbands. It is a beautiful thing to witness. Here is one woman who is doing this and encouraging others who have also chosen to stand for their errant husbands:
“You keeping your faith and your testimony is strong, even now. People want to fix the situation; it’s human nature. Most people default to fixing marriage problems by shifting the power from the errant spouse to the hurting spouse, by recommending the hurting spouse use divorce to top from the bottom (regain power and authority over the situation).
“Human sympathy seems appropriate. I always ask people if they’re trying to be more sympathetic than God is merciful. Because that’s really what’s going on: people think that they care more than God does about the errant spouse AND the hurting spouse. ‘Fix this pain!’ cries the flesh. My friends often think I’m completely crazy, or that I must have zero respect for myself for remaining married with things the way they can be.
“What they don’t realize is that they’re not going to be the ones picking up the pieces: they won’t be the ones loading up four children every few days to switch homes and clearing the emotional fallout from that. They won’t be paying to support my children or driving to medical appointments with me alone to help. They won’t be paying the lawyers or therapists; they won’t be training up my children to believe in covenant when they can’t even see it. They won’t be in my home holding babies for me. They won’t be at Court hearings fighting for my children to have stability in the midst of chaos.
“So unless someone’s planning on getting some skin in the game, I just ignore them and smile. Because I’m standing. And I’m standing with YOU!”
I know more than a few Evangelical pastors who believe that there is no grounds for divorce; that marriage is until death do us part. Sure sounds to me like these pastors are encouraging women to murder their spouses. Just saying…
Often this narrative [sin and redemption] is particularly prevalent among evangelicals who have been accused of sexual misconduct. After evangelical television personality Josh Duggar confessed to molesting his sisters as a teenage boy, he and his family used the salvation playbook. Michael Seewald, whose son is married to one of Duggar’s sisters, spoke out against the media condemnation of Duggar, who was never charged with a crime: “The ultimate answer … is what Josh found and millions like him. He found forgiveness and cleansing from Jesus Christ. There are many of you that are reading these words right now having had thoughts and deeds no better than what Josh had and did.”
Disgraced megachurch founder Ted Haggard resigned his post in 2006, after admitting to drug abuse and a sex scandal with a male sex worker. He returned to public church life with similar rhetoric: “I am a sinner and [my wife] is a saint. … I feel we have moved past the scandal. We have forgiveness. It is a second chance.”
In other words, there’s a tendency among evangelicals to see sexual (or other) sins that have happened long ago (or even not that long ago), either prior to conversion itself or prior to a “re-conversion” or renewal of faith, as, well, natural. Of course people commit sinful acts, because sin is part of the human condition, and of course people are victims of sin without God’s grace to help free them of it.
There are a few problems with how this manifests in practice. It can absolve “saved” individuals of too much responsibility for past misdeeds, since they’re considered the deeds of a past, different self. It encourages a culture of silence among evangelicals about their struggles, since salvation is “supposed” to mean that temptation goes away, and any “backsliding” is the result of insufficient faith. Finally, this theological approach also means that “sins” tend to be conflated, especially sexual sins: consensual premarital sex and sexual abuse are often seen on the same spectrum, both the result of a temptation too great to bear.
Without God, the implication goes, people have almost no agency. In Moore’s case, the fact that his alleged sins happened so long ago — and that the intervening years have seen him become more and more committed to the idea of a theocratic Christian state— only intensify some evangelicals’ sense that Moore’s actions then (even if true) don’t necessarily have a bearing on who he is now. It’s also worth noting that in the aftermath of Trump’s campaign, evangelicals have done an extraordinary about-face when it comes to their view on the importance of politicians’ personal morality.
Many, many Christian scholars and thinkers have been intensely critical of this “get out of jail free” approach to sin and grace, as I noted earlier this month. Among the most prominent in the past century was Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor and anti-Nazi dissident who was executed in a concentration camp for his activism. Bonhoeffer distinguished between “cheap grace” — easy forgiveness that allowed individual perpetrators and oppressive societies to get away, unchallenged, with their actions — and “costly grace,” or forgiveness that also asks hard questions, and demands social change.
It’s worth noting, however, that several prominent evangelicals — including the president of Southern Baptist Convention’s policy arm, Russell Moore (no relation) — have spoken out criticizing Moore’s evangelical supporters. “Christians, if you cannot say definitively, no matter what, that adults creeping on teenage girls is wrong, do not tell me how you stand against moral relativism,” Russell Moore tweeted.
Despite this, “cheap grace” has become seemingly common in some evangelical communities, especially when there are practical political or pragmatic reasons (i.e., a Republican in power) to overlook a sin and preserve the social status quo.
The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
Twice-convicted Amish rapist Jacob Weaver was sentenced on Monday to three years in prison on two counts of gross sexual imposition, and one count of attempted gross sexual imposition. Previously, Weaver spent eight years in prison for first-degree rape. All of crimes were perpetrated against underage girls. Amazingly, Don Loucks, pastor of Ohio Valley Restoration Church in Hendrysburg (Barnesville),Ohio, asked the judge to grant Weaver leniency, saying that Weaver had really, really, really changed since being released from prison. What must a person do for an Evangelical pastor to be willing to say, lock him up and throw away the key? Forget WWJD — what would Jesus do. What would/should a father do if his daughters were raped and sexually assaulted? Does the good pastor Loucks not understand this?
Robert DeFrank, a reporter for The Times Leader, writes:
A former Amish community member previously convicted of rape of a minor, is going to prison again for sex crimes involving two Amish girls.
Jacob Weaver, 65, of Jerusalem appeared before Belmont County Common Pleas Judge John Vavra on Monday and was sentenced on two counts of gross sexual imposition, a felony of the fourth degree, and one count of attempted gross sexual imposition, a felony of the fifth degree. Vavra imposed a sentence of 17 months for the first two counts, to be served consecutively, and an 11-month concurrent sentence for the third count, for a total of 34 months.
The offenses were initiated in 1986 and continued through 2006. Court records indicate the two female victims were younger than 13 years old when the crimes began.
Weaver had been convicted of first-degree rape of an underage girl in 2006. His defense attorney asked Vavra to consider Weaver’s prior sentence of eight years and his efforts to reform, as well as his law-abiding life since his release in 2015.
Pastor Don Loucks of the Ohio Valley Restoration Church in Hendrysburg asked that some leniency be shown, adding that in the time he has known Weaver he has seen a change in his character.
Vavra took note both of the prior rape conviction and of the physical and psychological harm to the victims.
“I have to focus on the victims and what you put them through, based on the manner on which you manipulated your relationship with them,” Vavra said. “I’m uncertain whether, although there is a showing of remorse, whether that is genuine at this point, or whether you are simply hiding behind your newfound religious feelings to shield yourself from punishment.
“You victimized (the victims) quite frequently, and while this occurred many years ago, it also occurred over a course of years,” Vavra said, adding that consecutive terms were necessary.
“This conviction and sentence ends a horrible case that will see the defendant receive yet another prison sentence,” Belmont County Prosecutor Dan Fry said, pointing out that the abuse occurred in the late 1990s and early in 2000. Fry said the sentence was commendable in light of new victims coming forward.
He added that the victims were part of the Amish community, and factors including their ages made a prosecution of all offenses committed difficult. His office refilled the new criminal charges when it appeared that the other victims were ready to come forward.
The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
Todd “Rhino” Tomko, a disgraced U.S. Marine colonel and pastor of Parkview Church in Quincy, Illinois, was charged this week with “three counts of indecent liberties with a child, three counts of aggravated sexual battery and one count of cruelty.”
Joshua Miller, a reporter for the New York Post, writes:
A former commander of the Marines’ Wounded Warrior Regiment has been charged with sex crimes involving three children in Virginia, police said.
Todd Shane Tomko, a 54-year-old former Marine Corps colonel, was arrested last week in his hometown of Quincy, Ill., where he had been serving as the pastor of Parkview Church following his court-martial and forced retirement from the Marines Corps in 2016 amid accusations of inappropriate sexual contact with subordinates, the Quincy Herald-Whig reports. [Tomko court-martialed over sexual improprieties, Jesus forgives him, and church hires him as their pastor…amazing]
Tomko was arrested on charges of three counts of indecent liberties with a child, three counts of aggravated sexual battery and one count of cruelty, Virginia Beach police spokeswoman Linda Kuehn told the Virginian-Pilot.
The incidents allegedly occurred in 2002 and Tomko knew the three alleged victims, Kuehn said.
Tomko, according to the Washington Post, was sentenced to 60 days’ confinement and fined $10,000 after pleading guilty during his court-martial to conduct unbecoming of an officer and a gentleman for having an inappropriate contact with enlisted subordinates, including a female Marine corporal.
Tomko also pleaded guilty to possessing anabolic steroids and testosterone, with the majority of the allegations occurring when he was stationed with the Wounded Warrior Regiment in Quantico, Va. Tomko had been relieved of his command there in February 2015 after the allegations surfaced, the Washington Post reported.
Tomko, whose 33 years in the Marines included a tour of duty in Afghanistan, said during the court-martial that he was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder just months after he was relieved from the Wounded Warrior Regiment. But he had been struggling for years, Tomko said.
Marine Corps officials filed criminal sex-abuse charges against the former Wounded Warrior Battalion commanding officer, Col. T. Shane Tomko yesterday.
Last year in February, Col. T. Shane “Rhino” Tomko was relieved of his duty after only being in that position for approximately six months. He was relieved by Marine and Family Programs Director Brig. Gen. Russell Sanborn “due to a loss of confidence in his leadership,” in a statement released by Maj. Rob Dolan, a spokesman for Marine Corps Manpower and Reserve Affairs.
A preliminary hearing in the case was scheduled for March, but later postponed, according to the Quincy news. No calls were returned to the news source by the Marine Corps.
Tomko was charged by the Corps with “abusive sexual contact, obstruction of justice, illegal possession of steroids and other crimes,” as listed in the news piece. It detailed charges of Tomko being accused of “sexually assaulting a female Marine corporal in October 2014 by forcibly kissing her on the mouth and later making derogatory remarks about her.”
It also listed other charges of previous sexual assault complaints against Tomko, in the past — one in which was in the civilian courts but was later withdrawn in January after an administrative complaint was upheld.
Tomko had come to the regiment after a year-long tour as the 2nd Marine Division’s operations officer out of Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. He enlisted in 1983 and has experience as an infantryman and special operations officer according to reports.
Todd Tomko, a United States Marine, faced a judge Tuesday morning in Virginia Beach’s Juvenile and Domestic Relations court,
requesting a bond be set in the case against him.
Tomko is charged with seven felonies; three counts of custodial indecent liberties, three counts of aggravated sexual battery with a victim under the age of 13 and one count of endangerment and cruelty to children.
The 54-year-old served in the USMC for 33 years, some of it as an infantry officer and the final part of his career with the Wounded Warrior Battalion.
Defense counsel said Tomko has three children who live in Germany with his ex-wife. Jarrett McCormick, his lawyer, said Tomko is not a threat to society and not a flight risk but the Commonwealth’s Attorney argued against setting a bond.
Court records show Tomko had three victims, all known to him. In court the judge denied the defense counsels request for bond.
….
Tomko’s attorney said he plans to appeal his bond hearing and the case will likely go on front of a judge again on Monday. At that time a preliminary hearing date will be set.
The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
Convicted rapist Michael Mercado believes God wanted him to marry his victim. Mercado, however, was already married. Mercado’s crime was reported to church officials. It is unclear whether they reported Mercado’s behavior to law enforcement.
Johnathan Hogan, a reporter for the Idaho State Journal, writes:
When Michael Mercado’s ex-wife caught him having sex with a minor, he told her it was God’s will that he take this woman as his second wife.
District Judge Joel Tingey wasn’t buying that defense Monday when he sentenced Mercado, 48, to five to 20 years in prison for sexually abusing a minor.
“I considered a rider program. As with probation, I think that minimizes the damage done,” Tingey said.
Mercado of Idaho Falls was arrested in June after the relationship was discovered. He was charged with sexual battery committed by lewd or lascivious acts on a minor child 16 to 17 years of age. The charge was amended to rape where the victim is 16 or 17 years of age.
During Mercado’s sentencing, the ex-wife read a victim impact statement to Tingey about how her former husband’s actions had affected her.
She said Mercado had tried to guilt-trip her for reporting him, and when she spoke to a church leader about the abuse, told her to call him back and deny her earlier statements. She said Mercado said they should stay together, and that the abuse would stop if she didn’t report it.
“After this, I don’t know what part of my relationship was real,” Mercado’s ex-wife said. “I used to think the worst thing that could happen in a marriage was to have my husband cheat on me, but I was wrong, so very wrong.”
The woman said she was disgusted by the harm he had done to the victim, and said she did not feel safe with her ex-husband free.
“At this time, I would ask the court to extend the full wrath of the law to Mr. Mercado,” she said.
The victim of Mercado’s abuse agreed.
“I know that he can get life in prison, and that’s what I want,” the victim, now 18, said in her victim-impact statement.
She said she met Mercado when she was 13, and he said he wanted to get to know her better. He told the victim he had prayed, and God told him they should marry.
Mercado proposed to the then 17-year-old girl in May, and said he had even looked up how much time he may face in prison if caught. The victim said she typically went along with what Mercado wanted for fear of how he would react if she said no.
“He also brainwashed me to think it was OK to rape me,” the victim said.
John Thomas, Mercado’s defense attorney, acknowledged the unusual nature of the case, but said his client’s actions would not have been a child sex abuse crime if he waited six months.
…
He argued, however, that his client needed treatment for sex addiction, pointing out that Mercado had four marriages that failed because of cheating. Thomas also said his client has no criminal history.
“I just don’t think this is a prison case,” Thomas said. “I certainly don’t think it’s a life-in-prison case.”
The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
Catholic priest James Talbot was indicted earlier this month on charges of gross sexual assault. Talbot previously spent six years in prison after pleading guilty to raping two high school students.
Dennis Hoey, a reporter for the Press Herald, writes:
A former Jesuit priest who taught and coached at Cheverus High School for nearly two decades before being fired in 1998 is scheduled to be arraigned in Portland on charges he sexually assaulted a minor in Freeport nearly 20 years ago.
A grand jury indictment dated Nov. 9 and obtained by the Press Herald on Tuesday identifies the priest as 80-year-old James Francis Talbot of Dittmer, Missouri.
The indictment charges Talbot with gross sexual assault, a Class A offense, and with unlawful sexual contact, a Class C offense.
The indictment alleges that Talbot engaged in a sexual act with a minor and subjected the minor, who was 8 or 9 years old at the time, to sexual contact on or between May 1, 1997, and June 14, 1998.
The indictment said the alleged crimes took place in Freeport, but offered no information about a specific location, Talbot’s relationship to the minor, or why Talbot was in Freeport. It also was not clear why the charges are being brought now or whether this is the first time Talbot has been charged in Maine.
According to Maine statute of limitations, a prosecution for incest, unlawful sexual contact, sexual abuse of a minor, rape or gross sexual assault may be commenced at any time if the victim was not 16 at the time of the alleged crime.
The Boston Globe reported in October 2005 that Talbot pleaded guilty to raping and sexually assaulting two Boston College High School students in the 1970s and was sentenced to five to seven years in prison. Prosecutors said the assaults took place during wrestling practices.
When Talbot was accused of molesting the Boston College high students in 2002, the president of Cheverus said the school was unaware of the incidents in Boston when Talbot was hired in 1980.
“It was absolutely not known,” the Rev. John Keegan told the Press Herald in March 2002. “I was superior of the community and I would have heard. But there were no hints at all.”
Talbot served six years before he was released in 2011. He was ordered by the court to live out of state in a secure, monitored treatment facility.
….
Talbot was targeted in the Boston Globe’s Spotlight investigation into abuses that had occurred within the Catholic Church. The Globe’s investigation resulted in the movie “Spotlight” that told the story of how the newspaper uncovered the sex abuse scandal in the Boston church.
In a March 2002 Spotlight article, the reporting team said that Talbot coached wrestling at Boston College High School and that he engaged in a “bizarre habit” of wrestling with students who were in various stages of undress, including wearing only athletic supporters. He was transferred to Cheverus High School in 1980.
The Globe reported that Michael S. Doherty of Freeport filed a lawsuit against Talbot in 1997 for molesting him while he was a student at Cheverus. The case was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount, the Globe reported. No criminal charges were filed because the alleged abuse fell outside the statute of limitations at that time.
The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
George Donald, a former youth leader at Hatfield Christian Church in Pretoria, South Africa was convicted recently and sentenced prison for sexually abusing several young girls. Now, one of his victims is accusing Hatfield Christian of covering up sexual abuse.
Zelda Venter, a reporter for IO, writes:
For decades, pastors at Hatfield Christian Church covered up the sexual abuse of several young girls by one of its youth leaders.
In the same week that the Constitutional Court deliberated on the statute of limitations on sexual abuse cases, George Donald, 67, was sentenced in the Pretoria Regional Court to a total of 11 years’ imprisonment, of which he has to serve an effective six years.
This was for raping his biological daughter, Marijke Donald, now Mwathi, over several years in the 1980s, as well as his foster daughter – who does not want to be named – for months while she lived with the family in Pretoria.
The rape and sexual abuse of Marijke, 40, started around the time she was 3 and ended when she was about 12.
Her foster sister, who was about 10 at the time, eventually told Marijke’s mother, who does not want to be identified. The mother turned to the church authorities for guidance.
Both parents received counselling and the advice of the church elders at the time was that they should pray and talk to each other.
In an e-mail exchange with Hatfield Christian Church last year, Marijke accused the then church leaders of turning a blind eye to the serial abuse and protecting a rapist. She said they told her mother that it was “church policy” not to go to the police or to take a “Christian brother before a heathen judge”.
They also told her mother, Marijke said, that if she had been a better wife, Donald would not have abused the girls. But while the counselling with church elders continued, Donald continued to rape her, Marijke told the Pretoria News.
She now lives in Scotland, but returned to Pretoria last week, with her brother Jason Donald, author and award-winning filmmaker, who lives in Switzerland, to see their father go to jail.
“I don’t hate him, but I wanted to see him go to jail for what he had done to me,” she said.
Donald, who is wheelchair-bound, pleaded guilty to two charges of rape. Due to his advanced age and the fact that the crimes occurred in the 1980s, he was sentenced according to the law of the time.
If the rapes occurred after the new Sexual Offences Act came into effect, he could have faced life behind bars.
“The investigating officer asked whether I wanted to talk to him after he was sentenced,” said his daughter. “I faced him after all these years and told him I no longer hated him, but he had to go to jail.”
Donald, who lived in London, was extradited to South Africa to account for his crimes after about 30 years.
In a statement to court before sentencing, Marijke said: “As a child I lived in a home where our family portrait was that of God-loving people who served Christ through the church.
“We helped those in need, but behind this perfect family impression lay a sinister secret of a man who thrived on the ability to control, manipulate, lie and abuse many around him.”
Marijke said it was not only sexual abuse she had been subjected to, but also emotional abuse. “As a child growing up in that environment, I lived in fear, confusion and hypervigilance If only the church went to the police or removed him as youth leader.”
The abuse only stopped when the family moved to Scotland in 1990 and her mother eventually divorced him.
“Once it was discovered that George was abusing me, it was me who was punished. No one went to the police or had him arrested and charged to keep me safe.
“Not the church, not the doctor who examined me and not my mother. He even remained as a youth leader.”
She said she decided a few years ago to report the rapes and sexual abuse to the authorities. “I decided to forgive him Not for him to be freed, but for me to release myself from him To live with what George has done to me is one thing, but I could not live with the knowledge that he has harmed others.”
Around the same time Marijke was raped, another young member of the church, Elizabeth van der Merwe, was also being abused.
She said that while the church service was going on, he would take her to a room elsewhere on the premises, ostensibly to prepare for the youth service.
She counted the steps to this room, where he abused her. She could still remember exactly how many there were, she said.
Marijke Donald’s foster sister, Cordelia, has decided to publicly tell her story. Annie Brown, a reporter for The Mirror-UK, writes:
A rapist who abused his daughter from the age of four told her “it is better for a girl to be broken in by her father rather than a stranger.”
Devout Christian George Donald, 67, began abusing Cordelia Donald when she was two.
He raped her, sometimes twice a week, from the age of four until she was 10.
Now Cordelia, 40, has bravely spoken out about the horrific abuse which a church covered up, the Daily Record reports.
When Cordelia’s mother found out about the abuse and went to pastors in the church where Donald was a volunteer youth leader, she was told that it was against “church policy” to take a “Christian brother before a heathen judge” or the police.
Her mother was also told the abuse wouldn’t have happened if she had been a better wife.
….
This week Donald, from Dundee, who was living in South Africa at the time of the crimes, was sentenced to seven years in prison for raping Cordelia and a 10-year-old girl in the 1980s.
….
Cordelia has chosen to speak about her ordeal as she fears there are other victims of her father who have yet to come forward.
The family emigrated from Scotland to South Africa when Cordelia, who has three brothers, was 10 months old.
Donald began abusing her when she was two. He raped her, sometimes twice a week, from the age of four until she was 10.
The abuse only lessened when another female victim reported to Cordelia’s mother that she had been abused.
But when her mother reported the abuse to pastors at Hatfield Christian Church in Pretoria, she was shrugged off.
….
To the outside world, Donald, a supermarket manager, was the epitome of the perfect husband and father, a charismatic and upright Christian who worked tirelessly with children.
Cordelia said: “Behind this perfect family impression lay a sinister secret of a man who thrived on the ability to control, manipulate, lie and abuse many around him. I was victim to sexual, physical, psychological and emotional abuse.
“As a child growing up in this environment, I lived in fear, confusion and hyper vigilance. I would jump if I heard a car pull up or a lock turned. I was constantly scared.”
Cordelia was so traumatised that from the age of three, she pulled her hair out and bit her nails until her fingers bled.
She was so desperate not to be a girl and a target for her dad that she imitated being a boy, even trying to urinate standing up.
Her dad threatened to harm her mother and brothers or kill her family pets if she revealed their “secret”.
She said: “I felt that by saying nothing, I was protecting my family.”
Donald told her it was normal for dads to behave sexually with their little girls.
There are way too many women I hear about who are postponing marriage and having children for their careers. Then when they finally get married, their husbands want them to continue working since they make good money. Reality is proving that this isn’t good for marriage. Suzanne Venker wrote about this. “Nevertheless, the new reality of many women outpacing men educationally and sometimes financially has serious implications for marriage.” God created men to be the providers and women to be the keepers at home. This is His plan and nothing that men and women do today will every change this.
….
No, God did NOT wire women to be men. He didn’t wire them to be the providers. Our hormones prove this. Our physical build proves this. Everything about us proves that this is not our role in society no matter how hard feminists have fought to say that it is. They will NEVER outsmart God and His plan for us. Never.
….
Even though many men want their wives to continue working because they see dollar signs instead of a mother at home with her children, it harms the marriage since the husband is last on the totem pole for the wife’s attention. She only has so much energy and most of her energy must go to her work to keep it, then to her children, then her home, and nothing is left for her husband. It’s too steep of a price to pay for extra money. Way too steep of a price. Men have ten times the testosterone for a reason. They are the ones created by our Creator to go out and “slay the dragons,” as Dr. Laura always used to say. Many women who try to do this eventually suffer from burned out adrenals and ill-health.
….
Half of medical and dental school students are women these days. This is tragic for the women: for the men whose jobs they are taking away, for the lack of children they will be having, and for their future marriage. Stop the madness, women. Don’t pursue a high-powered career that makes a lot of money. Marry a godly husband who wants to work hard and be the provider.
As the Black Collar Crime series has shown, Evangelical pastors can and do commit all sorts of crimes, including — in the case of Missouri-Synod Lutheran pastor Christopher Gattis — murder. Gattis stands accused of murdering his wife, stepdaughter, and the stepdaughter’s boyfriend on Thanksgiving Day.
Gattis worked for and was a member of a church that believes “the Bible to be the inspired and inerrant Word of God and the only revelation on both beliefs and practice.” Lutherans believe people must persevere until the end to be saved (as do Calvinists). The difference between Lutherans and Calvinists, according to Douglas Sweeney, chair of the church history and history of Christian thought department and director of the Jonathan Edwards Center at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, is that Lutherans believe:
….the elect will certainly persevere in faith. God is not impotent to carry out his decrees respecting salvation. But not everyone who is born again is among God’s elect. It is possible for regenerated people to apostatize. So perseverance is largely a matter of walking in step with the Spirit, persevering, and encouraging other people to do the same.
According to Sweeney, Martin Luther believed that there were sins that could result in people losing their faith. Luther wrote:
“it is necessary to know and teach that when holy people—aside from the fact that they still have and feel original sin and also daily repent of it and struggle against it—somehow fall into a public sin (such as David, who fell into adultery, murder, and blasphemy against god), at that point faith and the Spirit have departed.” Luther, Smalcald Articles (1537), 3.3
None of us can know Christopher Gattis’ “heart.” For the purpose of this post, I am going to assume that he was a good Missouri-Synod Christian who loved Jesus, and the moment he committed the very public sin of homicide, the Spirit of God took flight from his soul and Gattis is now a sinner in need of conversion.
Using murderous, adulterous David as an example, Luther believed that when King David publicly sinned against God, faith and the Holy Spirit departed. Gattis, much like David, had a record of misconduct. In 2010 he was accused of public intoxication, and in 2012 he was charged with assault and battery. Kevin Defford, his victim in the assault, said the following to the NBC-12:
“He was on edge that day, was my thinking,” says Kevin Defford, who is the victim in the 2012 case.
Defford was delivering samples of a newspaper with his son and tossed one onto Christopher Gattis’ driveway.
“On the way up, he had come from his driveway and was standing in the middle of the road,” said Defford.
He says Christopher Gattis threw the paper at his face and started yelling, even going as far as to pull out a box cutter.
“The fact that he pulled the box cutter, it had me thinking about my son at that point, and that’s why the police were called,” says Defford. “But again, it seemed like he was on edge that day when I met him.”
Christopher Gattis was found guilty, but the charge was dismissed once Christopher Gattis paid restitution. Now knowing this man is connected to a triple murder has Defford shaken.
“Now it makes me wonder a little more um, what might have been,” he said.
It seems that Gattis has had several bouts of faithlessness. The good news is that if Gattis repents — telling God, my bad, Jesus. I promise never to kill anyone again — he can, once again, become a man after God’s own heart. No sin — no matter how perverse, vile, disgusting, or evil — is beyond the forgiving power of the miraculous blood of Jesus. For Gattis, restoration is but a prayer away.
Or is it?
Evangelicals love to talk about how bad they were before they became new creations in Christ Jesus. As anyone who has sat through a Baptist testimony time can attest, wild claims of depravity are quite common. The greater the sin, the greater the grace needed to save sinners from their sins. Over the course of the fifty years I spent in the Christian church, I never heard believers minimize their sinfulness. Oh no, the bigger the sinner, the better. This is why the history of Evangelicalism is filled with stories about people who were once witches, Satanists, and mob hit men before J-e-s-u-s saved them. Such people regale congregations with stories of murder, sexual abuse, demonic possession, sacrificing infants to Satan, and all sorts of perversion. Yet, Jesus somehow, some way, reached down into their wretched souls and saved them. (Of course, many of these wild testimonies are lies straight from the mythical pit of hell.)
Murderers present a real conundrum for Evangelicals. They know that David was a murderer, yet God forgave him, and he was considered not only a man after God’s own heart, but also a relative of Jesus. Evangelicals read and hear stories about murderers whose lives were transformed by the mighty working power of the triune God. This must mean, then, that murderers can be saved too, that even killing your family or strafing innocent men, women and children with weaponized drones is within the purview of Jesus, the savior of humankind. But, is it really? What does the Bible say on the matter?
Revelation 21:8 states:
But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.
Revelation 22:14,15 adds:
Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie. [OMG! all dogs go to hell!]
The writer of First John said:
Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him. (1 John 3:15)
Speaking of reprobates — those beyond the grace of God — the Apostle Paul said:
For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. (Romans 1:26-32)
Paul emphatically states in Galatians 5:19-21 that murderers shall not inherit the Kingdom of God:
Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
Did Christopher Gattis, by murdering his family, cross a line of no return? Has his nonrefundable ticket for the Lake of Fire been punched? Or, is there still hope for Gattis; that if he really, really, really says he is s-o-r-r-y that God will say to him, aw shucks, Chris, I forgive you. The Bible is incoherent on this matter, as it is with virtually every other theological, cultural, and social issue Christians say the Bible addresses. God said it, and that settles it, right?
Of course, there is no God, so flesh-and-blood humans are left with the unenviable task of trying to figure out why Gattis picked up a gun and murdered those closest to him. Was he mentally ill? Was he under the influence of drugs or alcohol? Did he shoot them in a fit of rage? If so, what caused him to be so angry? So many questions, and regardless of the answers, Gattis, if convicted, should spend the rest of his life in prison (and I know some readers think this is a death-penalty-worthy crime).
I grieve for those left behind in the wake of Gattis homicidal rage. And for those who attempt to paper over this tragedy with God, prayer, and faith? Child, please. Stop excusing bad behavior with nonsensical theological arguments and clichés. What’s next? — God needed more good angels so he used Christopher Gattis to send his family to heaven; that God always works things out according to his purpose and plan? Enough, already. (Please read Sutherland Springs Massacre: God Answered the Victims Prayers by Allowing Them to be Murdered.)
About Bruce Gerencser
Bruce Gerencser, 60, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 39 years. He and his wife have six grown children and eleven grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist. For more information about Bruce, please read the About page.
Bruce is a local photography business owner, operating Defiance County Photo out of his home. If you live in Northwest Ohio and would like to hire Bruce, please email him.
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I am convinced that Evangelicals have so prostituted themselves on behalf of the Republican Party that they lost any sense of decency, ethics, and morality. Take Flip Benham, director of Operation Save America:
Judge Roy Moore graduated from West Point and then went on into the service, served in Vietnam and then came back and was in law school. All of the ladies, or many of the ladies that he possibly could have married were not available then, they were already married, maybe, somewhere. So he looked in a different direction and always with the [permission of the] parents of younger ladies … He did that because there is something about a purity of a young woman, there is something that is good, that’s true, that’s straight and he looked for that. (Crooks and Liars)
There’s something about the PURITY of a teen girl? Yes, he actually said that. Benham’s argument seems to be that all the older women were being fucked by men and were married, so Moore had to seek out teen girls who had not yet lost their virginity. We should be very glad that all the teen girls weren’t “impure.” Moore would have then had to seek out prepubescent girls to meet his purity standard.
