by Ed Pettibone » Sat Oct 30, 2010 1:04 pm
Ed: I have brought this thread to the surface as the result of of a heads up to me by Aaron (AKA Big Daddy) Weaver on on another board at this site. Aaron directed me to a long list of Baptist (mostly Southern Baptist) leaders compiled Christa Brown a former attorney in Texas who has for several years been on a crusade to force the SBC to create a registry of clergy who have been accused of sexual impropriety especially in cases involving under age parishioners. This list is made up of people who Christa charges with protecting sexual predators in the clergy.
This thread started with a discussion of one church in Indiana that took pro active action to be involved with the redemption of a pastor from another church who has confessed to having been involved with a 15 year old girl in his former congregation and at the time was awaiting sentencing.
To my amazement Christa or some one at her organization has included me in their list of those attempting to protect predators. Her by offering consist of a few words and phrases lifted out of their much longer original context and she embellishes them with her own reading of what is meant in an effort to make them look like evidence of her false claim. To her credit Christa states her purpose and that of her organization is to stop clergy who are sexual predators.
Should I have been surprised, to be on a list from Christa perhaps not. It has long been my position that her methodology and many of her accusations are less than ethical and fail to make adequate distinction between the accused and the guilty. I have said that she take on too many roles, from investigative reporter, to prosecutor, to jury and Judge. I invite all to read a month or so of her blog post for confirmation. That might not bother me if she where an average working housewife in a field other than Law. But with her training I have a notion that she that she could/should display greater respect for due process and accurate reporting.
In the list she inaccurately identifies me as "a retired Baptist Pastor", I am not. I did enter college in 1956 as a ministerial student but majoring in Sociology, after a few years I discovered other ministries apart from the pastorate. I also entered SBTS in 1963. after a year of classes in RE not SW, I dropped out to wait for them to get the social work program operating, and went to work as a welfare worker in my home county in Indiana. Later I was recruited by the Labor dept to a program to train counselors to work with "the Hard Core unemployed" . I worked with the Indiana Employment Security Div for several years before retiring in 1985. I latter worked in a Florida facility caring for mentally retarded and at the Lee County Mental health Crisis unit. I did return to SBTS in Jan. 1990 and earned an MA in Christian Education, in 1992. Then came the Takeover of the SBC. My last full time employment was at Parr's Rest a Baptist owned "Home for old Ladies" in Louisville KY., as identified on the papers of incorporation. That was while my wife was working doing her M. Div. at southern 1995-98. We have been members of American Baptist churches since 1999 while Trudy was studying at Hebrew Union in Cincinnati. Trudy has been a pastor since 2001. And I served as a lay person on the ABCNYS Board of missions for two years while in the Adirondack association. We are now in the Capital Area of the state.
As I have said previously In a few of my secular jobs, Employment Counselor, Welfare case worker, Mental Health worker, I have dealt with men and women who do fit the predator profile, and I am convinced many are redeemable and that it is a sin for those of us in the Church to turn our backs on them. Errant former pastors should be no exception to our redemptive efforts. If that bothers Christa Brown - I will be glad to chat with her on these boards not on her turf where she controls the edit button.