The Southern Baptist Convention took a recent hit for its years of putting the offering plate lid on sexual abuse within the walls of the largest Christian denomination in the U.S. Even now, more adults are coming forward to reveal their emotional scars from a childhood of forced subjection to the perverted will of the leaders who they were told they could trust. The ones who would lead them down the righteous path to Beaulaland if they would just agree to place their faith in their lecherous hands. Which lots of them did…
In all fairness, the head Southern Baptist holy men aren’t alone in their thoughts of having superiority over the written word they claim to be the rule and guide that everyone but them needs to live by.
A video of a woman at an independent Christian church in Indiana went viral when she confronted her pastor in front of the entire congregation for repeatedly taking liberties with her as a teenager and for threatening her with hell’s flames if she reported the abuse.
It took a TV documentary to expose the fine men of the Amish and Mennonite’s darkly lit communities for their decades upon decades of God-sanctioned sexual abuse. At times, it’s been so severe that there are still undiscovered unmarked graves containing the defiled bodies of child victims whose frailness could not tolerate the abuse.
Catholic priests. No need to elaborate. Next paragraph…
The #ChurchToo movement was started by advocates for uncovering church sexual abuse, and it now has an enormous number of followers who transcend denominations, faiths, and ministries, in a blanket cry against the predominantly male leadership of all organized religions.
Fortunately, not all preachers are the same. Church of Christ minister Jimmy Hinton from Somerset, Pennsylvania is sincere in practicing what he preaches and is a strong proponent of the movement.
“For us, it’s just confirmation of what we’ve been saying all these years,” he said. “There is an absolute epidemic of abuse in the church, in religious spaces.”
Keep your eye on Anaheim, California as members of the Southern Baptist Convention pour into town for their annual shindig. The sexual abuse issue is high on their list of scheduled topics, but it’s expected to be downplayed by the leaders of whom some are guilty of the very topic. What’s going to happen outside should be quite another story.
Timing is everything. The beans on the Baptists were spilled immediately following Indiana Independent Christian Church’s preacher, John B. Lowe II, having little choice but to confess his sins.
Bobi Gephart, the woman who pulled the pulpit out from under him, was only 16 when Lowe began anointing her with his holy goodness. She isn’t surprised at all to see more and more people finally coming forward.
Gephart said she’s been contacted by victims from around the world who’ve shared their own “heartbreaking” tales of abuse and have encouraged her to continue fighting on all of their behalves.
She said that many churches are adamant about covering up abuse so as not to affect church attendance. “It’s all about covering up, ‘Let’s keep the show going.’ There are hurting people, and that’s not right. I still don’t think a lot of the church gets it.”
What’s just been reported is not intended to criticize anyone’s religious beliefs or their devotion to them. It’s to point out that people are people. Clergy or not. Careful out there…
