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Black Collar Crime: Jennifer Roach Tells Story of Sexual Abuse at First Baptist Church in Modesto, California

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brad tebbutt

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.

Garth Stapley, a reporter for the Modesto Bee, details the story of Jennifer (Graves) Roach’s sexual abuse in the 1980s at the hands of Brad Tebbutt, youth pastor at First Baptist Church in Modesto, California. (The church is now called Crosspoint Community Church) Tebbutt was never charged for his crimes, and he is still actively involved in the ministry today at Mike Bickle’s International House of Prayer in Kansas City, Missouri.

The following excerpted story is almost 4,000 words in length. Please take the time to read the entire story.

The 27-year-old married youth pastor in Modesto consoled the troubled girl, whose father had just died. Eventually, he kissed her. Then he fondled her.

She was 14.

Over the next 2 1/2 years, Brad Tebbutt sexually abused Jennifer Graves in his office at First Baptist Church, a prominent Modesto congregation, and in his car. After school, before his wife returned from work, he would have sex with her in his home, she said.

At the end of her junior year at Beyer High School, in 1988, Tebbutt and his wife moved away. A recent publication boasts of his 30-year career as a youth pastor, and he now works in a seniors ministry for the International House of Prayer of Kansas City.

How Tebbutt kept his jobs at churches and religious schools, in Oregon and Missouri, is unknown. Interview requests submitted to several known employers and former employers mostly have gone unanswered.

It’s clear that soon after the abuse ended, First Baptist leaders knew.

A few months after Tebbutt left town, the girl confided in another youth pastor, who told then-high school pastor Marvin Jacobo, who has led a long and distinguished ministry both at the church and at a respected religious nonprofit group in Modesto.

Jacobo recently confirmed that he had called Tebbutt after the girl came forward all those years ago, and said Tebbutt confessed to him. Jacobo then contacted Tebbutt’s wife and his boss at the time, he said.

Tebbutt refused multiple interview requests made via telephone and email, and Jacobo would respond only in writing, sidestepping some questions.

The current lead pastor at First Baptist – which changed to CrossPoint Community Church in 2010 – arrived long after church leaders were rocked in private by this sex scandal, as well as two others where adult volunteers molested several boys, in the 1980s.

Enough boys shared their stories with authorities to convict the two men, although a delay in reporting allowed one to prey on more boys at another church down the road, court documents say.

But Tebbutt’s victim – still a teenager, when she finally came forward – was told to forgive and forget.

Church leaders never informed her mother. They never went to police. They termed it an affair, she said.

“They gave me specific directions to never speak of the events to anyone, because it would damage the reputation of the church, and of Jesus himself,” she said. “The abuse was swept under the rug.”

Two friends from those days who also attended First Baptist, Deborah Jules Vilmur and Jennifer Vanderpol Tracz, recently confirmed that she had confided in them about the abuse not long after it happened.

Jennifer Graves Roach turned 47 on Feb. 25. She lives in the Seattle area with her husband and teenage son. Since those days in Modesto, Roach has been ordained in the Anglican Church, she’s earned college degrees and she now counsels sexual abuse victims, among other clients, in a religious therapy group near her home.

And she’s become a silence breaker.

….

In the late 1970s and early ’80s, First Baptist Church was “my whole world, in a lot of ways,” recalled Roach, who attended Sunday services, midweek youth activities and summer camp. “I loved it. It was a second family to me.”

When her father died in a car accident, her mother had trouble coping with three teen children. Roach often was depressed as well, she said, and thought about harming herself. She brightened when the youth pastor in charge of Beyer High paid her attention. She thought her prayers had been answered when Tebbutt and his wife invited her to stay in their apartment, at first overnight, then indefinitely.

“They saved me from a difficult situation at home,” Roach said. “There was lots of affirmation; ‘You’re a special case,’ he would tell me. ‘You’re the prettiest, the smartest, the funniest’ – things you would tell someone to get them to trust you. I absolutely was groomed for abuse.”

Sexual encounters went on for 2 1/2 years, she said. “He became my entire emotional support, and I was this vulnerable, depressed, anxious girl who had just lost her dad and couldn’t get along with her mom and had no other options. At that age, I didn’t feel I had other choices, and he took advantage of that.”

Roach wondered why she didn’t become pregnant. After marrying, she didn’t conceive for five years. “Fertility doesn’t come easy to me,” she said.

When Tebbutt left town, she remained silent for six months. Reading Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” in her senior year at Beyer, a dark work about terrible secrets, prompted her to confide in another youth pastor during a youth activity at the former Roller King.

“I knew she was sad a lot. I could tell she was carrying something heavy. So I just asked her what was going on,” said Scott Mills. “I imagine she was at the point of having to tell somebody or implode. You have to get that out somehow.”

Mills later started and pastored his own church in Modesto, Three Rivers Christian Fellowship, for 14 years before leaving in 2013 for a career in marketing.

“Knowing what I do about life and kids and parents and peer influence and hurt and pain and damage, it grieves me greatly,” Mills said. “Not only what happened to her, but that she didn’t feel she had the support she needed. Looking back, I’m pained by the lack of appropriate response.”

….

“They completely and entirely mishandled the situation,” Roach said. “At first, they didn’t believe me. At subsequent meetings they kept asking me if I wanted to take my story back. They asked if I was just doing this for attention.

“At one point they put me in a room with four or five adult men and they asked me to describe with specific words what had happened. And I was a 17-year-old girl.

“They failed to tell my mom. I was a minor and they kept it from my family. They should have reported it to police and they didn’t. They told me never to speak about this again.”

….

A year before Tebbutt left Modesto, Bob Chapman, then 53, pleaded guilty to molesting 13-year-old boys he met at First Baptist.

Chapman, a church organist, was entrusted to hold meetings of groups of boys in his Modesto home, said one of them, Larry Spencer. One time, Chapman hosted a sleepover. The evening discussion was about puberty and masturbation, Spencer said. Then they watched movies and drifted off to sleep.

“I woke up in the middle of the night with him (Chapman) touching me,” Spencer said. “I freaked out. I didn’t know if I should tell anybody, so of course I didn’t. I really can’t tell you why, if it was out of shame or something. How do you tell somebody, ‘Hey, this guy was touching me’?”

Chapman and his family were good friends with and lived close to Spencer’s foster family, he said. Chapman continued molesting him, in the car while giving him rides home from church, and in the swimming pool during youth activities, Spencer said. In all, he was abused maybe 10 times over a couple of years, he said.

One day, Spencer was in the attic installing the top end of a ceiling fan. He peered through the ceiling hole into a room and saw Chapman grab another boy, he said.

“I said, ‘Enough’s enough. This guy’s going to screw somebody else up,’” Spencer said, and the story came out. His foster parents were “mad as hell at me, for exposing it and bringing them some sort of shame,” he said.

“I was not very happy with First Baptist, either,” Spencer said. “They kind of pushed me aside as well. I had been extremely involved, at every activity. After I talked about Bob, I was kind of an outcast.”

Boys in the group were questioned, and Chapman was charged in Stanislaus County Superior Court with abusing Spencer and two others. “We were all saying, ‘Fry him; give him as much time as you can,’” Spencer said. A negotiated deal ended with Chapman pleading guilty to two counts of child molestation in return for a 300-day term in County Jail.

….
About the time of Chapman’s conviction, George Austin, a retired California Highway Patrol officer and Sunday School teacher at First Baptist, was molesting boys as well. Court documents indicate that someone got the idea something was going on.

“When (Austin) became suspected of molest at the First Baptist Church and was sent on his way, he then went to the Orangeburg Baptist Church, where he was a youth leader and where he then molested” two brothers multiple times, said then-prosecutor John Goulart, according to a court transcript. The brothers were 7 and 11, a charging document said.

Goulart, now on Modesto City Hall’s legal team, doesn’t remember specifics. “Most likely, it would have been the parents of victims who would have told me that the First Baptist Church discovered the molests, (dismissed) Austin and allowed him to move on to another church where he was in a position to commit more molests,” Goulart said in a recent email.

Austin had taken boys on trips to his former patrol office, to Santa Cruz, to Great America, and camping in the mountains. “These boys were looking up to this man as a father figure, a youth leader, a retired CHP officer, someone they trusted,” Goulart said in the transcript. “He put himself in a position where he could molest the boys.”

Court documents suggest Austin had about 10 victims in all. One spoke when he was sentenced for 12 counts of child molestation, including oral copulation.

“It’s a lot to live with, knowing you’re molested,” the young man said, according to a transcript. “It’s a hell of a lot. He was like a father figure to me. For a long time there I called him ‘Dad,’ even though he was molesting me. He was still the only father figure I ever had in my life.

“He left a very damaging scar. I just wanted to say that I feel he has damaged all of our lives, and I trust you to decide. Amen.”

The judge gave Austin a 28-year sentence. Now 80, he lives in a care home for the elderly in Modesto.

….

In his recent letter to The Bee, Jacobo, now executive director of City Ministry Network in Modesto, said he didn’t go to Modesto police about Tebbutt 30 years ago because Roach “did not want to press charges. We wanted to honor her wishes in that and begin her process of healing.”

Like teachers, child care workers and others, clergy are mandated reporters, required to tell law enforcement when they come across or suspect abuse. But clergy weren’t added to the list of occupations, now 46 long, until 1997, eight years after Roach exposed Tebbutt to church leaders.

At the time, Roach accepted Tebbutt’s “direct apology,” Jacobo said, and “seemed satisfied with the process and the results. I feel like we did everything we knew to do in addressing it. If she now feels this was insufficient, then we sincerely apologize.”

Roach called that “a ‘sorry-she-got-her-feelings-hurt’ apology.”

It’s true that church leaders scripted an arranged meeting a few years after the abuse ended, where Tebbutt said he was sorry and she was pressured to accept the apology, she said.

The fallout for Tebbutt, if any, is unclear.

“There were no allegations of sexual misconduct against Brad that we were aware of at the time he was hired,” said Randy Shaw, field director with the Christian and Missionary Alliance Northwest in Oregon, where Tebbutt worked from 1999 to 2004.

At some point, Tebbutt went through an “18-month repentance and restoration process” with a psychologist, according to a note recently sent to Roach from his church in Missouri, Forerunner Christian Fellowship. He “continues to express deep sadness and sorrow over his actions,” wrote Dale Anderson, the church’s director of pastoral support.

Tebbutt’s other known employers over the years, having been informed of Roach’s story, failed to respond to multiple requests for information. They include Horizon Community Church and Horizon Christian School, near Portland, where he was a chaplain and teacher, and the International House of Prayer of Kansas City, where Tebbutt now works; a spokesman referred The Bee’s sister company, The Kansas City Star, to IHOPKC’s media policy, which reads: “We will not give out sensitive information.”

A few months ago, the publishing arm of MorningStar Ministries released a DVD of a conference featuring several presenters, including Tebbutt, called “Motivated by Love.” The company’s founder and executive director, Rick Joyner, declined to comment.

Tebbutt’s latest position is director of the Simeon Internship, a three-month training program for people 50 and older at the International House of Prayer of Kansas City. Multiple calls to his office went unanswered; in an email, Tebbutt asked if he should submit a statement, then went silent for three weeks.

Tebbutt did reach out to Roach in 2005 with a lengthy letter, apparently as an exercise in repentance; it arrived in an envelope bearing the name of a Christian therapy group in Oregon. The Bee obtained a copy.

“Let me state clearly that regardless of how this has been treated in the past, I understand that I sexually abused you,” one part reads. “There are hurts that you should have never experienced, and they were not yours to own. I grieve over this.”

….

You can read the entire story here.

An April 6, 2018 Modesto Bee story states:

A former youth minister at a prominent Modesto church accused of sexually abusing a then-teen girl three decades ago is the target of an upcoming independent investigation.

GRACE, or Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment, led by a grandson of the late Billy Graham, will conduct the probe of Brad Tebbutt, who now works for a religious organization in Missouri, GRACE confirmed to The Modesto Bee late Thursday.

The alleged victim in Modesto, Jennifer Graves Roach, now 47, said she will cooperate with the investigation.

“You don’t get better than that,” Roach said of GRACE’s “impeccable credentials.” She said, “I trust them, and (a third-party investigation) is what I’ve been pushing for.”

….

The Kansas City Star, a sister paper to The Modesto Bee in the McClatchy company, also received confirmation Friday morning from the International House of Prayer of Kansas City. That group had placed Tebbutt on leave March 1 after a February Bee report that included a Modesto clergyman saying Tebbutt had confessed to him about the abuse.

Tebbutt worked for Modesto’s First Baptist Church when he sexually abused Roach for about 2 1/2 years starting when she was 14, shortly after losing her father in a car accident, she told The Bee. He was 27 and married.

IHOPKC cited “inconsistencies between the parties’ accounts of what took place 30 years ago” in an email to the Kansas City newspaper. Tebbutt will remain on leave, IHOPKC said.

First Baptist, which changed to CrossPoint Community Church in 2010, did not refer the girl’s report to authorities and Tebbutt went on to a 30-year career in youth ministry elsewhere before being hired to lead a seniors internship program in Kansas City.

The investigation by GRACE, a nonprofit based in Virginia, will stretch from Tebbutt’s ministry with First Baptist in Modesto to subsequent years with Horizon Christian High School near Portland, Ore., as well as his time with IHOPKC, said GRACE’s Basyle “Boz” Tchividjian, in an email.

“Due to the fact that this is an ongoing investigation, we cannot make any further statements at this time,” Tchividjian said. He is a former child abuse prosecutor and grandson of Graham, the nation’s most well-known Christian evangelist who died in February at age 99. Tchividjian also is a professor at Liberty University School of Law.

Roach said, “The idea that potentially other victims could be found and receive some help is immensely satisfying.” She now is an Anglican minister and therapist near Seattle who counsels victims of sexual abuse, among other clients, and she is married and has a teenage son.

….

Black Collar Crime: Evangelical Pastor Phillip “Flip” Benham Accused of Threatening Woman at a Clinic

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flip-benham

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.

Flip Benham, a virulent anti-abortion preacher, was arrested for threatening a volunteer at a Charlotte, North Carolina woman’s clinic.

WSOC-9 reports:

Concord pastor Phillip “Flip” Benham was arrested for threatening a volunteer at a Charlotte woman’s clinic.

The pastor, who holds rallies with dozens of people throughout the week, especially at woman’s clinics that provide abortions, told Channel 9 the arrest was “bogus.”

A volunteer at A Preferred Woman’s Health Clinic on Latrobe Drive in Charlotte claims the pastor threatened her life during one of his rallies.

The clinic’s director told Channel 9 in a statement that they are scared by the group’s “pattern of violence.”

The volunteer said Benham approached her and “menacingly” and “repeatedly” told her, “You are dead,” and was fearing the threat would be carried out.

“There has never has been one convicted act of violence there at all. I’ve been there 17 years,” Benham said.

Benham claims he did not threaten the clinic volunteer, but rather said she was “dead in her sins.”

He said he was referring to the Christian principles that don’t align with abortion.

Benham told Channel 9’s Stephanie Tinoco that he has worked to stand up for unborn children and has been arrested dozens of time.

He said he will gladly sit in a cell for the cause. He said he lost count how many times he’s been arrested.

“We care about choice. We know that God has called all of us to make a choice. And only we have that choice. We want to help them,” Benham said.

….

Benham said he wants women to know if they’re willing, his crew is willing to help them get through an unwanted pregnancy and choose life.

….

Update: Black Collar Crime: Baptist Student Pastor Spenser Farr Sentenced to Fifteen Years in Prison for Sexually Molesting Two Boys

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spenser farr

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.

In 2018, Spenser Farr, a student pastor at Hamlin Baptist Church in Springfield, Missouri, was accused of molesting two boys at local public pools.

The Springfield News-Leader reported:

A Greene County church has cut ties with its student pastor after he was accused of molesting two children in Phelps and Crawford counties several years ago.

Spenser A. Farr, 24, has been charged with five counts of statutory sodomy in connection with incidents in 2012 and 2013.

Court documents say the sexual abuse took place at two public pools: The Centre in Rolla and the Steelville City Pool in Steelville.

In the summer of 2012, Farr was showering with a boy after Farr, the boy and the boy’s sister had all gone swimming together at The Centre, documents say. During the shower, Farr allegedly touched the boy’s genitals and continued to molest him after the boy told Farr to stop.

According to documents, the boy was either 12 or 13 at the time.

Farr repeatedly sexually abused a different boy at the Steelville City Pool in the summers of 2012 and 2013, court documents say, while Farr worked at the pool as a swimming instructor and lifeguard.

Farr allegedly molested the boy in the pool despite the boy telling Farr to stop.

According to court documents, the boy said Farr molested him about eight times in 2012 and more than 20 times in 2013.

The boy and his father reported the abuse to a manager at the Steelville City Pool in 2013, court documents say, at which point Farr was fired.

When a detective spoke with the manager in 2017, the manager confirmed that Farr had been fired for touching a child’s genitals, court documents say.

It’s unclear if the manager told authorities about the alleged sexual abuse before police approached her in 2017.

The News-Leader has reached out to the city of Steelville for comment.

Phelps County Prosecutor Brendon Fox filed the charges against Farr. Fox said he is unsure whether the pool manager was considered a mandated reporter. A mandated reporter is someone required by law to report suspected child abuse, neglect or exploitation.

Fox said it was his understanding that the investigation into Farr began after a delayed report of abuse by the victims and their families.

Farr apparently moved on from being a lifeguard to become a youth pastor in Greene County.

Hamlin Baptist Church — which is located just northwest of Springfield city limits — said in a statement that Farr is no longer a student pastor at the church.

“The church personnel team has released Spenser Farr from the position of student pastor at Hamlin Baptist Church and we have no other announcement or information at this time.”

It does not appear from court documents that the accusations against Farr are in any way related to his time as a youth pastor at Hamlin Baptist.

….

In April 2019, Farr was convicted of three felony counts of first-degree statutory sodomy and sentenced to fifteen years in prison.

Phelps County Focus reports:

A Springfield man was found guilty Wednesday of sex crimes committed against children at recreation areas in Rolla and Steelville in 2012, according to a press release from the Phelps County Prosecutor’s Office.

Spenser Farr, 25, was convicted by a local jury of three felony counts first-degree statutory sodomy after a three-day trial. The jury deliberated for approximately five hours before returning their verdicts of not guilty on two counts and guilty on the other three.

….

The release details in June of 2017 “victim 1” disclosed to his youth pastor that he had been molested by Spenser Farr in a shower at The Centre in Rolla in 2012. The case was investigated by Detective Adam Meyer of the Rolla Police Department. Det. Meyer interviewed the youth pastor and other witnesses before learning that Farr had been accused of touching a different boy at the Steelville Pool, also in 2012.

Det. Meyer identified and interviewed that boy, “victim 2,” who disclosed that Farr had been his swimming lessons instructor and had molested him in the pool. After the allegations came to light in 2012, the father of “victim 2” confronted Farr at the pool about it and Farr resigned shortly afterward. The family of “victim 2” decided to not pursue the case further due to the stress and impact on him, but when Det. Meyer made contact in 2017 he was older, more mature, and able discuss his experience. Det. Meyer identified another boy, “victim 3,” who described several incidents at the Steelville Pool in 2012 where he could feel Farr’s erection touching him. He never told anyone until he spoke to Det. Meyer in 2017, but he stopped going to the pool and being around Farr before anything worse could happen.

At trial, all three victims testified along with Det. Meyer and some of the victims’ parents who described unexplained changes they observed in their children in 2012. The defense presented evidence from Farr, his parents, another lifeguard, a police officer from Steelville, and other members of the church.

“Detective Meyer did an outstanding job investigating this case. He spent months chasing down every lead and interviewing everyone who might have had information. Without his tireless efforts for the victims, this conviction would not have happened,” said Fox. “I want to thank the victims for coming forward. Studies show that at least 1 in 6 men will be victims of sexual abuse at some time in their life. For various reasons, the crime often goes unreported. Victims need not suffer in silence; law enforcement cares and wants to help.”

At sentencing Wednesday, the jury recommended 10 years in prison on two of the counts, and five years in prison on the other. Final sentencing will take place at 10:30 a.m. June 17. Beger revoked Farr’s bond after the verdict and ordered a sentencing assessment report.

At the time of his arrest Farr was employed as a student pastor with Springfield-based Hamlin Baptist Church. Farr was not an employee of The Centre at the time the 2012 incident occurred.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen 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.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Black Collar Crime: Hope Church of the Assemblies of God Faces Civil Suit Over Sexual Abuse Claims

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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.

Six men have filed a civil lawsuit against Hope Church of the Assemblies of God in Albany, Oregon, alleging that church youth leaders sexually molested them in the 1980s.

The Corvallis Gazette-Times reports:

The lead pastor at Albany First Assembly church wrote a letter to church members on Saturday, informing them of a lawsuit filed against the church by six men who say they were sexually abused as children by church youth leaders.

“As a church with a rich history in and reputation for valuing, caring for and serving all people, we are deeply saddened by any mistreatment of anyone, but especially of those who are most vulnerable among us,” Frank Silverii stated in the letter. “Therefore, we commit ourselves to pray for the plaintiffs that they will receive the healing, hope and restoration that is needed.”

The lawsuit was filed Friday in Multnomah County Circuit Court. Five of the plaintiffs are represented by their initials in the suit. The sixth plaintiff is listed as Anthony Burwell. The defendants are the First Assembly of God of Albany, Assemblies of God Oregon District and the General Council of the Assemblies of God.

First Assembly church in Albany rebranded last year as Hope Church.

The plaintiffs assert that two leaders of a church youth program sexually abused them in the 1980s. According to the complaint, Ralph Wade Gantt and Todd Clark were leaders in the church-sponsored Royal Rangers, an educational and recreational program for boys similar to Boy Scouts. The lawsuit alleges Gantt and Clark abused their position of leadership, trust and respect to repeatedly sexually abuse the six plaintiffs when they were as young as 10 years old.

Gantt and Clark were criminally convicted in 1988 for sexually abusing several boys, one of whom is a plaintiff in the current lawsuit.
The lawsuit alleges that the church and its governing organizations failed to investigate and let police know when a boy in 1984 reported Clark had sexually abused him.

Silverii stated in his letter that the church “moved away from the Royal Ranger program back in 2011.”

….

Silverii states that after a lawsuit was settled in 1991 regarding abuse by Gantt and Clark, the church used media outlets to seek other victims who were abused by Royal Ranger volunteers.

“No one else stepped forward until 2016, which was another lawsuit alleging abuse from the 1980s, and again today (27 years later),” Silverii wrote.

The Dumas Law Group, which is representing the plaintiffs in the current lawsuit, filed suit against the Albany First Assembly church in 2016 on behalf of a separate plaintiff who alleged abuse by Clark and Gantt. That lawsuit was recently resolved with a confidential settlement, said Gilion Dumas.

She said the delay in pursuing a civil lawsuit is common with abuse victims.

“As a result of the trauma caused by childhood sexual abuse, very few sexual abuse survivors — especially male survivors — ever report what happened to them,” Dumas said. “It can be years and even decades before those who do report come forward to do something.”

The church sent the following letter to its members:

Dear Family and Friends of Hope Church,

I am making you aware of a lawsuit that has been filed against our church, the Oregon Ministry Network (Oregon Assemblies of God) and the Assemblies of God national office. We were made aware that a lawsuit had been filed via a forwarded email on Friday afternoon (February 23, 2018). To date (February 24, 2018), and to the best of our knowledge, the church has not yet been served.

What we know: There are six Plaintiffs alleging sexual abuse, five of which, are unidentified. The Plaintiffs allege the abuse took place between 1980 and 1986, at the home of two Royal Ranger volunteers that were part of our church at that time, and at state-wide event (32-38 years ago). Royal Rangers is an all-boys program similar to Boy Scouts only with a greater emphasis on the Bible and spirituality. As a side note, Hope Church moved away from the Royal Ranger program back in 2011.

Our current Kids Small Groups program (KSG), involves boys and girls, and is structured in group settings with multiple leaders. Extracurricular activities (e.g., sleepovers etc.) are hosted on the church campus or at retreat settings and not at an individual’s home. In addition, every person who serves around minors is required to go through a FBI background check and training in child safety. The protection of our kids is paramount to God and to us.

Also, it is important to note that we are incredibly proud of all those who currently lead and work with our children and youth, and extremely confident in the level of care and safety these ministries provide. The current claims reference a previous lawsuit that was litigated and settled back in 1991 (27 years ago), at which time the perpetrators were convicted and sentenced for their crimes. In addition, our church put out a plea in 1991 through available media outlets asking for all others to please step forward if they too, were violated in anyway by the Royal Ranger volunteers. No one else stepped forward until 2016, which was another lawsuit alleging abuse from the 1980s, and again today (27 years later).

As a church with a rich history in and reputation for valuing, caring for and serving all people, we are deeply saddened by any mistreatment of anyone, but especially of those who are most vulnerable among us. Therefore, we commit ourselves to pray for the Plaintiffs that they will receive the healing, hope and restoration that is needed.

[This letter was fine until this point. The church’s pastor decided to paint some faux gold on a stinking, foul turd.]

Over the years and in recent weeks Hope Church has witnessed the beauty and power of Jesus and His Gospel people freed from their past wounds, experiencing a renewed purpose for living and a promised home in heaven one day. This is why the Gospel is such good news! And, this is why we do what we do as a church. We are extremely proud of our Hope Church family as they continue to serve Jesus by serving others  throughout our community and valley. Furthermore, we are excited about the future God has for us.

Please continue to pray for the Plaintiffs, the Hope Church family and the lawsuit; that it will be swiftly and satisfactorily settled for all involved.
Please direct any additional questions to the Lead Pastor’s office. Thank you.

Grace & Peace,
Pastor Frank Silverii
Lead Pastor
Hope Church
www.hope.church

Black Collar Crime: Evangelical Youth Pastor Joshua Clemons Facing Sexual Assault Charges

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joshua clemons

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.

Joshua Clemons, youth pastor at Crossroads Community Church in Parker, Colorado, stands accused of sexually assaulting a minor church girl.

ABC-7 reports:

A former youth pastor at Crossroads Community Church faces charges of sexual assault on a child by one in a position of trust, and authorities are looking for more possible victims.

Joshua Clemons, 35, was arrested Tuesday by the Denver Police Department amid an ongoing investigation into allegations he sexually assaulted at least one member of the youth program he led.

Parker police say 18th Judicial District prosecutors have already filed three charges of sexual assault on a child by one in a position of trust against him.

Clemons worked as a youth pastor at the Parker church from 2008 through September 2015, the police department said.

Police said there are three incidents that allegedly occurred involving members of his youth group, and that the church brought the information to the department’s attention and was fully cooperating with the investigation.

According to police, the church brought the allegations to police in December 2016, but at the time, Clemons and the girl said they had a consensual relationship and the girl was 18 years old. But after further investigation from the church, it was discovered their relationship started before she was of age.

There were two other girls who were allegedly victims of Clemons’, police said.

….

Crossroads Community Church released the following statement:

Statement from Crossroads Community Church Board and Executive Leadership

Feb. 27, 2018

Today, a former youth pastor who was employed from 2006 to 2015 at Crossroads Community Church was arrested on charges related to alleged sexual abuse of three then-minor girls during his tenure at our church.

This arrest stems from allegations revealed to Crossroads on February 1, 2018, which we immediately reported to local law enforcement authorities.

Crossroads Community Church takes any inappropriate behavior with our young members very seriously. We are heartbroken and grieve with those who are victims of sexual assault and their families.

The individual facing charges resigned from Crossroads in 2015, citing work-related stress. In December 2016, the Crossroads Leadership Council was made aware that after he left church employment, he had apparently engaged in a relationship with an 18-year-old female who was formerly a member of his youth group.

Crossroads’ leadership immediately reported this information to local law enforcement, though no laws were alleged to have been broken.

On February 1, 2018, the mother of the young lady we learned about in 2016 contacted us to express her concern that this former youth pastor was being hired by another church in a position to oversee young people. She further informed us that she had recently learned her daughter’s relationship with this man had begun while her daughter was a minor, and that they believed there were other possible victims.

The same day the mother made us aware of these alleged criminal offenses, we immediately reported the new information to local law enforcement authorities and continue to fully cooperate with them during this investigation.

We have been praying for healing and restoration for any victims, known and unknown, and we ask our entire community to do the same.

We encourage anyone with information regarding potential criminal activity, especially any victims, to contact law enforcement immediately. The Parker Police Department may be reached at 303.841.9800, and the Colorado Child Abuse and Neglect Hotline is (844) CO-4-KIDS, or 844.264.5437.

For many years, Crossroads Community Church has had protocols in place—including a national background check that is performed on all employees when they are hired and again every two years—to try to ensure this would not happen. We also have written expectations of employees that include standards of conduct as safeguards for both our employees and those under their care.

In light of this situation, we are conducting a thorough review of our employment procedures and policies to ensure every safeguard is in place to protect anyone, especially young people, from any predatory behavior on our campus or at the hands of any employees or volunteers. We will remain vigilant in our efforts to prevent such behavior, and swift and firm in dealing with any situation known to us.

ABC-7 reports:

The affidavit states that Clemons and the alleged victim knew each other since the girl was in fifth grade, but they didn’t begin a sexual relationship until September 2014 – when she was 17 years old.

The alleged victim told police that Clemons had admitted to kissing two other girls in the youth group but police didn’t provide any further details about those incidents.

The investigation began in February 2018, when the pastor at Crossroads Community Church informed police that the church learned of the relationship between Clemons and the alleged victim in December 2016. But Clemons claimed at the time that the affair didn’t begin until October 2015, several months after the girl turned 18.

The pastor reported the case in 2016 because he was concerned that the relationship had actually started when she was a minor, the affidavit states. At the time, police said no crime had been committed.

The pastor then went back to police in February of this year after hearing from the alleged victim’s mother, who was concerned that Clemons was being hired as a youth pastor by another church, according to a statement from church leadership.

In an interview with police a few days later, the alleged victim said she and Clemons first had sexual intercourse in June 2015 when she was a 17-year-old senior in high school, but they had kissed and had other sexual contact before then. Clemons was married at the time but told the girl that he wanted to divorce his wife to be with her, the affidavit states.

Clemons knew the girl was underage and even gave her a card with a message along the lines of “We’re legal” on her 18th birthday, according to the affidavit.

The relationship continued when the alleged victim graduated from high school and enrolled at Colorado State University, the affidavit states. The alleged victim told police that Clemons visited her almost daily and the two continued to have sex regularly.

At one point, Clemons went to a pharmacy and bought Plan B – the so-called “morning after pill” — and made the alleged victim take the medication.

The relationship ended in late 2017, the affidavit states, at which point the alleged victim said Clemons started “stalking” her and showing up at her new church. The alleged victim threatened Clemons with a restraining order, according to the affidavit.

….

Clemons’ church bio states:

I love the Broncos, ALL other Colorado Sports teams, and Batman. I eat hot cakes from McDonalds every single day, I’m a native of Colorado, and I got my bachelor’s degree in Criminal Justice from Metro (I wanted to be more like Batman), followed by a Master of Divinity degree with a specialization in Youth and Family at Denver Seminary. I love students and want to be more like Jesus everyday! In 2008 I married my lovely wife, Julia, a doctor in Denver hospitals. We have one other member of our family, Tulo (our super dog!). I have been loving on students at Crossroads since 2006.

“Loving on students” has a whole new meaning now that Clemons is facing sexual assault charges. Evidently, his criminal justice classes didn’t teach him that having sexual relations with minors and people you have authority over is a crime.

The Sounds of Fundamentalism: Boys at Florida School Shooting Lacked “Masculinity”, Says Dave Daubenmire

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dave daubenmire

This is the one hundred and seventy-first installment in The Sounds of Fundamentalism series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a video clip that shows the crazy, cantankerous, or contradictory side of Evangelical Christianity, please send me an email with the name or link to the video. Please do not leave suggestions in the comment section.  Let’s have some fun!

Today’s Sound of Fundamentalism is a video clip of Dave Daubenmire saying that the boys at the recent Florida school shooting lacked “masculinity.”  Be prepared to watch two minutes of vile, offensive preaching by the king of assholes, Coach Dave Daubenmire.

Video Link

Black Collar Crime: Pastor Cameron McDonald Faces Civil Suit Over Misused Donation

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pastor cameron mcdonald

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.

Cameron McDonald, pastor of Southern Acres Christian Church in Lexington, Kentucky, stands accused of “embezzling $100,000 of a church contribution.”

The Lexington Herald Leader reports:

A Lexington pastor under scrutiny since last fall is now accused of embezzling $100,000 of a church contribution, according to a civil lawsuit filed by two church members.

The new lawsuit from James Keogh and Chad Martin filed Friday in Fayette County Circuit Court provides more specific details about the source of the heated dispute at Southern Acres Christian Church than did an earlier lawsuit that was dismissed while the church members tried to work with pastor Cameron McDonald.

Keogh and Martin accuse McDonald of embezzlement, unlawful conversion of funds and unjust enrichment in the civil complaint. An attorney representing McDonald earlier said no money had been misused and denied all allegations. Attempts to reach attorney Austin Wilkerson Tuesday were not immediately successful.

Keogh gave $170,000 to the church on Dec. 19, 2016, at McDonald’s urging and $100,000 was diverted to McDonald or his wife to help pay the mortgage on the couple’s $530,000 Jessamine County house purchased about five months earlier, according to the lawsuit. Keogh had specified the money was supposed to be used to pay off the church’s mortgage

“McDonald intentionally treated Keogh’s $100,000 as his own and diverted it to his own personal use, to the detriment of Keogh and the others, by failing to make the specified payment of mortgage debt he promised to make,” the complaint states.

According to the complaint, Keogh made a written demand for the return of the money, but McDonald did not comply or respond. McDonald was given a Feb. 15 deadline.

The court complaint states that Keogh is entitled to the return of the $100,000 because McDonald did not use it in the manner promised and agreed. The church mortgage of $144,000 was not paid off and the church was subsequently in debt due to the misuse of the money, according to court files and a police case report filed in November.

In addition to diverting the money, McDonald insisted his pastor compensation should be increased in the months that followed the purchase of the Jessamine County home and its 96 acres of land , the new lawsuit claims.

Last year, McDonald also insisted the church add his wife to the payroll, giving them a combined income of more than $100,000, the lawsuit states.

McDonald arranged last year for the removal of several of the church’s governing board of elders and appointed his wife and friend, pastor Tim Jones, to the new 3-person board that included himself, court documents show.

The complaint also alleges that McDonald fired the church’s officer manager to prevent her from being able to provide information about the church’s finances to law enforcement. No staff members other than McDonald and his wife are listed any longer on the church’s website.

Prior to the November lawsuit being dismissed, church attorney Wilkerson denied all allegations made against McDonald and the church and said all actions were taken in accordance with the Bible.

As tensions escalated, McDonald repeatedly barred some members from church. An off-duty Lexington police officer blocked some from entering the church during worship services.

Earlier this month, the church’s members voted 173-0 for a resolution removing McDonald as pastor and electing a new board of elders. In fact, the church members had to vote at a nearby park because they weren’t given access to church property; the church was locked during service that Sunday. Wilkerson, at the time, called the resolution illegal and contentious.

….

Dear Pastor Russ Dean, Let Me Explain to You Why so Many Atheists Are Angry

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pastor russ dean
Pastor Russ Dean and Family (and dog)

Dear Pastor Dean,

You wrote the following for Baptist News Global:

For a couple years I’ve been having an intellectual battle with atheists. Not all of them, but the people I refer to as “evangelical atheists.” They are angry and passionate and just as religiously cocksure as the fundamentalist believers they despise.

Or maybe it’s all believers they despise. To them we are all weak-minded and superstitious and pathetically out of touch. If only we’d grow up. If only we’d get an education. If only we had a fraction of their intellectual depth, we would give up our tribal, backwoodsy notions of “God.”

As you can tell, I’m a little passionate about this.

I’m not so much offended by their insulting condescension — though it wouldn’t hurt them to be a little nicer — if only for tactical purposes. As we say in the South, “You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.”

More to the point, I’m disappointed by their argument against God. While purporting to be so intellectually superior, too many atheists take on only the worst of religion. If I positioned an argument against only 5th-grade science or against those scientists who had used their knowledge to master the atomic bomb or build Internet viruses or promote biological warfare, I could make a pretty good argument against the inanity and wickedness of science, too.

So it is either disingenuous to argue only against religious fundamentalism, or it’s embarrassing for such smart people to be so uninformed about the true variety and richness of religion. Too often atheists ignore the traditions of vigorous intellectual pursuit which can be found in the theological explorations of all of the world’s religions.

To be perfectly honest, I don’t believe in the same god many atheists don’t believe in!

….

Between these two disheartening poles, angry atheists on one hand and fundamentalist Christians on the other, it’s not the muddled mush of some middle ground I’m seeking — which makes staking a claim to “free and faithful” even more difficult.

I want to take a few moments to respond to some of the things you mention in your post about angry atheists.

American atheists tend to respond to the dominant religion of their culture — Evangelical Christianity. Evangelicalism dominates everything from state and federal governments all the way down to local school boards and city councils. Groups such as the Freedom From Religion Foundation, American Atheists, American Humanists, and Americans for Separation of Church and State spend countless hours dealing with Evangelical breaches of the wall of separation between church and state. Often, these groups are forced to sue schools and governments to stop their violations of the U.S. Constitution. I live in rural Northwest Ohio, a place dominated by God, Guns, Trump, and right-wing Republican politics. The aforementioned groups could spend the next year in rural Ohio litigating church and state violations. Imagine, for a moment, being an atheist in such a place. Imagine having to sit and watch as Evangelicals trash the Constitution. Imagine not being able to find employment because many businesses don’t want to employ an atheist. Imagine a place where every officeholder is a Republican who loves Jesus, the Bible, and Friday night football. Imagine hearing of sermons where atheists are described as haters of God, child molesters, possessed by demons, and tools of Satan. Imagine being one of only a few atheists who are willing to push back against Evangelical zealots, standing in for others who fear loss of employment, family, and friends if they dare say they don’t believe. Imagine being forced to be a secret atheist lest it ruins your marriage. Imagine pretending to be a Christian and attending church so your spouse and family won’t question your beliefs and judge you harshly.

What I have described above is real life for many atheists. You might want to walk in their shoes before you slap the “angry” atheist label on them. I wonder, would you be angry if you had to live in denial of who and what you are? What if the shoe were on the other foot, and it was Christians who were treated in this manner? How would you respond then? You speak from a seat of privilege. While that privilege is increasingly being challenged, Christians still have the captain’s seat at the head of the table. Several years ago, I attended a secular coffee house concert where a Christian musician started to tell a faith-based story. She paused for a moment, perhaps pondering the appropriateness of her evangelizing, and then said, well, we are all Christians here, right? I wanted to shout, HELL NO, WE ARE NOT ALL CHRISTIANS. Instead, I mumbled something to my wife and kept quiet. The musician’s statement reflects commonly held sentiment here in Northwest Ohio. I suspect the same could be said of the South and Midwest. Jesus is the king of the hill, and if you want to be fully embraced by your community you better at least pretend to be a Jesus Club® member.

You object to atheists responding to what you call the “worst of religion.” I assume that you think your version of Christianity is a better version, and perhaps it is. You and your church are progressive socially and politically. You have many beliefs that I admire. Yes, I said admire. I’m sure we could work together in turning back Donald Trump’s Evangelical followers as they attempt to establish a theocratic government. While I am not sure of your view of the culture war, I suspect on this front too we could find common ground to work together. I am pro-choice, yet I am more than willing to work with people of faith who object to abortion for moral reasons. Unfortunately, I have yet to find a Christian willing to accept my help. Instead, I am labeled a murderer who is worthy of death.

I was an Evangelical pastor for twenty-five years. I grew up in the Independent Baptist/Evangelical church. I pastored churches in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. I even pastored a Southern Baptist church for a time (not a pleasant experience). I am quite conversant in Christian theology, in all its shapes, sizes, and forms. Progressive Christians tend to paint themselves as different from Evangelicals. Often they are, but I have also found that if I dig a bit I will sometimes expose Evangelical beliefs at their core. For example, take the doctrine of eternal punishment. This is the one doctrine that many of my fellow atheists and I have a problem with. Not that we think there is Hell, but that there are Jesus-loving people who look at us and say, unless you believe as I do, unless you are saved by the Lord Jesus Christ, you will spend eternity in a lake of fire being tortured by God day and night. Worse yet, the God whom Evangelicals say loves everyone plans to give all non-Christians a new body after death so they can withstand endless burning and torture.

Whatever your beliefs might be, Pastor Dean, the only doctrine that really matters to me is whether you believe that I will spend eternity in Hell (or be annihilated) because I am an atheist; because I do not find the evidence for Christianity compelling. If you believe that, yes, I will spend eternity in Hell, then I have a hard time seeing you as a decent person. I am a kind, loving, thoughtful man. I’ve been married for forty-five years. I love my wife, six children, and thirteen grandchildren. While I am far from perfect, I would be more than happy to compare my good works with the best of God’s chosen ones. Yet, if there is a Hell, none of this matters. All that matters is that I have the “right” beliefs — as if Christians themselves even know what these right beliefs are. Belief in Hell, then, is the standard by which I judge Christians. If they believe only certain people will go to Heaven after death, then I have zero interest in being friends with them. Thinking your neighbor deserves to be tortured for wrong beliefs or human behaviors deemed “sinful” is offensive. Surely, you can see how atheists might become angry over Christians dismissing their lives in this manner. Granted, atheists aren’t worried about going to Hell because Hell doesn’t exist, but like most humans, we do desire to be well thought of by others. We very much want to part of the communities we live in.

Most of the atheists I know aren’t angry. They just want to live and let live. They want to live authentic lives filled with meaning and purpose (and not have Christians tell them there is no meaning and purpose in life without the Christian God). Unfortunately, literalism and certainty drive many Christians to evangelize anyone and everyone who doesn’t believe as they do, atheists included. Readers of this blog know that I am not an evangelist for atheism. I write about my past experiences as an Evangelical pastor. I also critique Evangelical Christianity, calling into question beliefs and practices they swear are straight from the mouth of God. I know Evangelicalism inside and out, and readers tend to trust my opinions. That said, I don’t care one way or the other if someone becomes an atheist. I consider any move away from Fundamentalism (and Evangelicalism is inherently Fundamentalist) a good thing. I view myself as a facilitator who helps people as they journey along the road of life. To use a worn-out cliché, it’s the journey that matters, not the destination.

My writing is widely read by religious and non-religious people, and it attracts legions of Evangelical zealots. These zealots call me names, attack my family, and even threaten me with death. These “loving” people of God are hateful and mean-spirited, some of them going so far as to attempt to hack my site or crash it with DDOS attacks. You see, Pastor Dean, your backyard has plenty of shit in it too. How about we both agree that angry Christians and angry atheists do not represent Christianity and atheists as a whole? How about we agree not to use social media as the measuring stick for determining the demeanor of Christians and atheists as a whole? I am sure that, like me, you can become angry. Anger is, after all, a human emotion. After leaving Christianity, I actually had to reconnect with my emotions. I had to learn that it was normal to be angry. What mattered is what I did with my anger. I spent fifty years dying to self/crucifying the flesh. The real me was swallowed up by Jesus and the ministry. It was refreshing, post-Jesus, to be human again. I am still in the process of reconnecting with the real Bruce Gerencser.

Rarely does a week go by where I don’t receive an email or a blog comment from Christians who think they can psychoanalyze me by reading a few blog posts. These mind readers just know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am bitter, angry, and hate God. No matter how much time I spend responding to them or explaining myself, they still heap judgment upon my head. Years ago, I told my counselor that I was perplexed by this treatment. Here I would share my journey and answer their questions and these followers of the thrice holy God would still heap judgment and condemnation upon me. Why? I wondered. My counselor laughed and told me, Bruce, you wrongly think they give a shit about what you believe. They don’t. He, of course, was right. Evangelicals, for the most part, aren’t interested in my story or what I believe. What matters is winning me back to Jesus. What matters is winning a victory for Team Jesus®. What matters is vanquishing the atheist preacher and his “followers.”

Perhaps, by now, Pastor Dean, you can sense and understand why I might be justifiably angry if I chose to be. However, I choose not to be angry. Life is too short for me to spend it arguing with people who aren’t really interested in what I have to say.  Let me conclude this post with the advice I give to everyone who stumbles upon my blog:

You have one life. There is no heaven or hell. There is no afterlife. You have one life, it’s yours, and what you do with it is what matters most. Love and forgive those who matter to you and ignore those who add nothing to your life. Life is too short to spend time trying to make nice with those who will never make nice with you. Determine who are the people in your life that matter and give your time and devotion to them. Live each and every day to its fullest. You never know when death might come calling. Don’t waste time trying to be a jack of all trades, master of none. Find one or two things you like to do and do them well. Too many people spend way too much time doing things they will never be good at.

Here’s the conclusion of the matter. It’s your life and you best get to living it. Someday, sooner than you think, it will be over. Don’t let your dying days be ones of regret over what might have been.

Please feel free to contact me if you have a question about atheists and their beliefs. You and I are never going to agree on the God question and the veracity of Christianity, but we can both do our best to understand each other. When given the opportunity, I do my best to call out atheists when they wrongly represent Christian belief. Facts matter, and atheists should be factual in their representations of Christian belief and practice. I ask that you do the same. I am considered by more than a few atheists to be too friendly with religious people. Since most people worship some sort of deity, it would be foolish for me not to be friendly to people of faith. All I ask is that religious people grant me the same courtesy.

Be well, Pastor Dean.

Bruce Gerencser

P.S. I also could have written thousands of words about how I was treated by colleagues in the ministry and former congregants after they found out l left the ministry and left Christianity.  Needless to say, these so-called men of God and sanctified church members revealed for all to see the ugliness and hate that lies just under the surface of Evangelical Christianity. I find myself asking, why in the hell would I ever want to be a Christian again? Why would I want to be around people who treat people in such dehumanizing ways? Forget whether the Christian narrative is true. If Christians can’t be people of love, compassion, and peace, they have nothing to offer unbelievers.

Note

Pastor Dean’s bio states:

Russ Dean is co-pastor of Park Road Baptist Church in Charlotte, N.C. A native of Clinton, S.C., and a graduate of Furman University and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, he earned a D.Min. degree from Beeson Divinity School. He and his wife, Amy, have been in church ministry for 30 years, and they have served as co-pastors of Park Road since 2000. He is active in social justice ministries and interfaith dialogue, and when he isn’t writing sermons or posts for Baptist News Global you’ll find Russ in his shed doing wood working, playing jazz music, slalom or barefoot water skiing, hiking and camping, or watching his two teenage boys on the baseball field.

Thoughts and Prayers Won’t Solve Gun Violence

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thoughts and prayers
Cartoon by Kristian Nygard

Mass Shooting in the United States from 1990-February 2018

mass shootings 1
mass shootings 2
mass shootings 3

Source: Mother Jones

Three decades of mass of shootings; over 300,000 homicides; over 600,000 suicides. According to Wikipedia, 1.4 million Americans have been killed using firearms between 1968 and 2011. Wikipedia also states:

Compared to 22 other high-income nations, the U.S. gun-related murder rate is 25 times higher. Although it has half the population of the other 22 nations combined, the U.S. had 82 percent of all gun deaths, 90 percent of all women killed by guns, 91 percent of children under 14 and 92 percent of young people between ages 15 and 24 killed by guns. In 2010, gun violence cost U.S. taxpayers approximately $516 million in direct hospital costs.

By some estimates, Americans own over 300 million firearms, yet most households and individuals do not own a gun. Surprisingly, at least to me, is the fact that most Americans are reticent about banning guns or enforcing strict firearm laws. This disparity shows how effective the NRA and gun lobby are at getting their message out. Like it or not, the United States is a nation of guns. Add to our personal weapon caches the vast weapons of violence, carnage, and death used by our military, and it is hard not to conclude that we are a violent people who love weapon of mass destruction. The U.S. government searched everywhere for Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. They, of course, found none. Perhaps the search for such weapons should start here within our borders and homes.

What is needed is comprehensive gun control legislation. (Please read Another Day, Another School Massacre) Bruce, you are WRONG! Guns don’t kill people, people do! Really? Are you so stupid that you cannot see the insanity of such an argument? Cars don’t kill people, people do!  Yet, we have all sorts of laws and regulations that govern car ownership and use, including testing and licensing requirements. We wisely, in the name of public safety, regulate automobile ownership and use, yet many gun owners demand the right to own any kind of firearm, without restriction. Such thinking is a threat to public health and safety in much the same way as are people driving unlicensed, unregulated automobiles on highways, streets, and country roads.

Month after month, year after year, angry, often mentally ill, people use firearms to slaughter their fellow Americans. Every time such carnage happens, Republican/conservative political leaders offer up “thoughts and prayers” while reminding us that guns are not the problem. If the outrage from the survivors of the latest school shooting is any indication, younger Americans are waking up to the reality that guns ARE the problem. Emperor NRA stands before them and says, the Second Amendment is sacrosanct and banning guns won’t stop mass shootings. These angry students wisely reply, BULLSHIT! They can see that the Emperor has no clothes. They see, oh so clearly, that unrestricted gun use and ownership is one part of the problem, along with the lack of mental health care for troubled teens and adults.

These young people are saying, NO MORE THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS! We want immediate and decisive action on gun control. It remains to be seen whether their outrage can be turned into a movement, one that perhaps mimics the student anti-war protest movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Back then, protesting students helped to bring an end to the Vietnam War — a decade of immoral American violence and bloodshed in Southeast Asia. I hope that today’s protesting students can put such pressure on the U.S. government that it will force our political leaders, after hundreds of thousands of firearm deaths, to finally enact strict, comprehensive gun control laws.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen 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.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Black Collar Crime: Evangelical Youth Pastor Donald Biggs Pleads Guilty to Sex Crime

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donald biggs

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.

Donald Biggs, youth pastor at Mtn. Church in Medford, Oregon, pleaded guilty Friday to “one count of transporting with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity.”

The Mail Tribune reports:

A former Medford youth pastor faces 10 to 15 years in prison after admitting he secretly recorded a juvenile in a bathroom.

In a U.S. District courtroom in Medford filled with youths, parents and church leaders he betrayed, Donald Courtney Biggs, 39, pleaded guilty Friday to a single felony count of transporting with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity.

The guilty plea spares Biggs, formerly a youth pastor at Mtn. Church in downtown Medford, and dozens of victims Biggs allegedly recorded in secret, from a weeks-long trial that was set to start later this month.

In his green Jackson County Jail uniform, Biggs made no statements and avoided eye contact with the audience. No victims made statements during the hearing, but U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken told victims she will allot as much time as needed to accommodate them at a sentencing hearing currently set for June.

Biggs has remained lodged in the jail since January 2015 following an investigation of inappropriate texting with minor girls in the church, according to earlier news reports.

The reports of inappropriate texting with minor girls led investigators to find recordings of adult and juvenile women in various stages of undress, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Amy Potter, who is prosecuting the case.

The single charge specifies that Biggs recorded a juvenile exiting the shower during a March 2013 church trip to Huntington Beach, California, Potter said. As part of the negotiated agreement, nine other transportation and child pornography charges were dropped.

….

Outside the courthouse, Mtn. Church lead pastor and founder Jim Wright expressed a mix of anger, faith in the justice system and the need for forgiving hearts as he supported victims and parents. At his services last weekend, after recent news updates brought feelings about the case back to the surface, he cautioned his congregation not to let healthy anger become bitterness.

“I’ve been walking these families through this for three years,” Wright said, adding later that children in his congregation, many now young adults, “have had to walk through incredibly deep valleys.”

Wright also expressed frustration, which he said was mostly for the families, that Biggs dragged out his case since early 2015. He said he believes Biggs pleaded “under the notion of a deal, not a contrite heart.”

Though Wright put his congregation’s feelings of betrayal far ahead of his own, Wright said Biggs had been someone he trusted. Biggs had been Mtn. church staff for roughly six years, but Wright had known Biggs for close to two decades. Wright started Mtn. Church 11 years ago.

….

On February 7, 2018, the Mail Tribune reported:

Three years after a Medford church burglary sparked the seizure of dozens of videos of minors undressing inside his home, a former youth pastor is scheduled to stand trial on child pornography charges in federal court later this month.

A judge denied a motion Tuesday to reschedule Donald Courtney Biggs’ Feb. 26 trial, according to filings in U.S. District Court in Medford. Dozens of witnesses will be called to testify against the former Mtn. (Mountain) Church youth pastor in a trial anticipated to last two weeks.

Recent filings by U.S. attorneys provide new details in the case against Biggs, 39, alleging he secretly took videos of minor girls changing at his home during church events and on church trips to California between June 2012 and March 2014. Biggs faces nine counts of using or attempting to use a minor to produce a visual depiction of sexually explicit conduct, and three counts of transportation with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity.

The more than 40 witnesses federal prosecutors intend to call include minors Biggs had been tasked with supervising at church activities, their parents and church employees.

Minors who participated in church activities are anticipated to testify that Biggs often encouraged “messy” activities or pranks that would require kids to change or shower during church activities, and would advise girls to bring a change of clothes, according to prosecutors. At church camps, Biggs allegedly would design “punishments” such as covering a kid in syrup and flour.

Minor girls and minor boys would use different bathrooms, and boys were often ostracized or isolated from the group, court documents allege.

Other witnesses U.S. attorneys have interviewed describe one-on-one meetings between Biggs and minor girls at the church and coffee shops, the documents say. Biggs would pick up minors from school to take them to lunch without parents’ knowledge or consent, would give girls back and shoulder rubs, would instruct girls to lie to their parents about where they were going, and would buy them clothes, the documents claim. Biggs allegedly texted some girls several times a day with phrases such as “love you to the moon and back,” “You are beautiful,” “I love you” and “Missed you last night,” according to court documents.

Inappropriate text messages sparked the investigation, according to a document filed Monday.

At the end of November 2014, police first investigated Biggs following a report of inappropriate texts between him and a minor, but police prematurely closed the investigation without reading the messages after the victim’s father told police there was nothing wrong.

Police reopened the inquiry Dec. 26, 2014, when the church relayed a letter from a victim’s grandparent alleging Biggs used “coercion techniques,” saying at different times he’d buy the girl clothing, solicit photographs or tell the girl “she made him sad or made him cry.” Biggs allegedly used software to wipe the contents of his phone before submitting the device to a digital forensic search, according to court documents.

When confronted, Biggs allegedly threatened that the church “would go down in flames” if they got him in trouble, according to a church employee prepared to testify. The church placed Biggs on leave by the beginning of January 2015.

Medford police arrested Biggs Jan. 15, three days after he triggered the church’s burglary alarm allegedly to steal computer hard drives. During police questioning, prosecutors say, Biggs made admissions that shifted investigators’ focus toward recordings.

….