SBC Blogger Charged w/ Sexual Assault

[Gene Scarborough]

Gentlemen:

I have just returned from the NCCBF meeting in Raleigh---which was one filled with renewed friendships / no angst / displaying all the best of Baptist relationships and ministry. It reminds me of what we used to enjoy before the "great political mess of CR Takeover."

My roomate and I took at trip up to Wake Forest and around the SEBTS campus. He was there in the 50's. I was there in the late 60's. The physical change to the campus and buildings is very noticible. There is now a building in honor of Paige Patterson. Other building names have been hyphinated--reflecting the new backers with money added to the old backers.

I roomed in the Johnson Dormitory which is now Johnson-Goldston because a big building contractor obviously put in bucks to renovate and improve. Assuming that dorm is the one housing the offense reported, I see an obvious change in what was there in 1967-70 vs. what is going on now.

My rebuke in making this a CR-Takeover matter is noted and NOT honored by me!

Indeed, there is a distinct change at SEBTS which I tried to note earlier. That change is the pretense of perfection with a super-conservative student body pretending too often to have achieved perfection of morals. Instead, the frailty of the human spirit is beckoned by Satan to fail---and do so in dramatic terms.

I note that Dave Miller is attempting to soften the seriousness of the offense. The legal aspects of the charge makes it far more serious. The Wake Sheriff's Department is fully aware of how NC law reads. Each officer in NC carries a thick book of NC law in their cruiser. Even with a traffic violation, the Highway Patrol and Deputies of local Sheriff's Departments can be seen behind the offender looking up the specific offense and citing it on the ticket. They must go to court and defend their citation under NC law.

A Defense Attorney loves nothing more than a failure in the citation to be legal. You can bet this case is not a simple case of "mistaken charges." You can also bet what Wade and David cited in the details of NC law is more accurate than Dave Miller's softening of it.

Here is my comment on people trying to say I am just making a CR matter out of "something not so serious:"

The reason I say SEBTS was not a place of debauchery in 1967-70 when I was there is that EVERY student came with the required recommendation of his local church. Those who were from other denominations paid a far greater Metriculation Fee since their fees were not covered under Cooperative Program giving. There was a form in every student file certifying the seriousenss of the student's calling to ministry and the local church's recommendation of him to SEBTS. That, in itself, kept perverts from getting by the system. We might have had such, but I never encountered them nor heard of anyone getting into trouble with law enforcement over a sordid act of sodomy or child porn.

A case not cited in all this is one of a student arrested in the last 15 years because his computer contained kiddie porn and he was trying to seduce a child over the internet and got caught by the special enforcement in Wake County on child pornography.

Here is the issue: I visited SEBTS as a MInisters LIfe Representative in 1986-1995 when ML was bought out by Minnesota Mutual. It was the time of CR takeover and Randal Lolley's forced resignation. After that the student body changed dramatically. I used that time to simply hang out in the LIbrary and informally talk with the "new student" appearing on the campus.

Few knew anything about SBC things nor regular SBC leadership. Because of my total involvement in the SBC and RA's, I knew the names of each Executive of the HMB / FMB / other agencies of the SBC. My informal listening and talking with students revealed most came from Liberty University (Jerry Falwell) and Heritage College (Pat Robertson) who had now heard that SEBTS was a "safe place" to get a degree with little cost.

I was so bold as to ask the Registrar if I might see some of the files to determine if the "required form" of my day was present in the 80's. I was politely refused access since those files were "confidential." Further, I asked if I might know exactly what was spent on renovations of the President's Home under the Drummond Administration where it was alledged that much was spent providing Mrs. Drummond with a humidity-controlled closet for her furs. Again, my request was "politely" refused. The closest I could get was a talk with the contractor who did the renovations. His take was "she could not be satisfied with what was originally done and made them take out and redo many things associated with the renovation." I worked my way through college as a Trim Carpenter. Whenever we had such an "undecided" customer, we charged for the original work, more for the removal, even more for the redoing of things a customer could not make up their mind. It amounted to tripling the origninal cost of renovations.

Although this has little to do with the over-all picture of "changes," it clearly has to do with a lack of "due dilligence" over who became a student and what Cooperative Program dollars were wasted in "pleasing the new President and his wife." The same was true when Patterson arrived on scene to complete the changes with forced renovation in faculty. The changes were so brutal that the Faculty formed a chapter of SACS to protect their tenure and position from a mass firing.

When the "pretense of perfection" is so bold, it is bound to hide imperfections now surfaced with the current charges against a student which are yet to be heard in the courtroom in Raleigh. It will be a brutal legal battle to soften the charges so that the offender will have less jail time or might even get off---with a costly defense in court. I am glad Wade wants to help him with funds because there will be many needed to "beat the rap."

On the other side as the Wake County DA charges him, there is much caution that the charges be accurate. You remember the case in Durham County over Duke students charged with raping an adult entertainer in a Fraternity. Those poorly handled charges resulted in the Defense Attorney getting that case thrown out and the DA was fired over charges his investigation was politically motivated and was false. Further, the NC Bar took the DA's profession from him because he violated the ethics rules of the NC Bar!

This is serious. It is not made in a light fashion. SEBTS has cautiously withdrawn their support and fired the student! That is the first step in showing how egregious it all is. Danny Akin addressed it in a recent Chapel Service. Those details are not yet revealed, but I am sure it was a caustic moral inditement of any student not walking an honorable walk in the faith.

As Wade Buleson has clearly stated: "We need to address this issue and quit acting as if it does not happen."

[Sandy]

[Gene Scarborough]

Sandy---

You missed my point entirely!!!!

We had a different kind of approach to theological education and morality in 1967-70. The fact that far more "pretense of perfection" is present is the problem.

Until people become more authentic in this day in the way there were in my day, there will be NO solution.

[Sandy]

[Gene Scarborough]

Pretense of Perfection = putting on a great show that one has arrived at the point of moral superiority that allows for judging others of less stature.

Along with this comes the tremendous temptations of humans and the inability to admit to such. This becomes Satan's playground and he does a good job of finding our weak points so we crumble with sin.

The basic definition of "sin" is "separation"---from God / self / other people.

Know thyself and quit playing the perfect Christian! None of us is perfect and above a state of sin.

[Dave Roberts]

Sandy, you mentioned an incident in a Baptist college, but earlier you had said that such was the way that SEBTS would deal with such things before the Takeover. What evidence do you have other than your college anecdote?

[Sandy]

[Dave Roberts]

[Gene Scarborough]

So Sandy----

All you stuff is ancedotal and conjecture without one ounce of personal experience.

I gave you an answer and you dismiss it and then alledge that I am being self-righteous = give me a break!!!

Thus far we are getting hot air and speculation from you---and you have not changed one iota nor will you admit we had an authentic theological education in my day as opposed to a bunch of pretend rightousness beneath which is a cesspool of corruption among some of the "perfect ones."

Sadly, I think you are living in a dream world of CR bunkshooting.

[William Thornton]

The CR is over three decades old, Gene, and the moderates have been out for almost twenty. While I thought your nostalgic visit to campus was interesting, I don't see any broad generalizations that apply to the incident in question. You might respond to something current rather than always falling back on things decades ago.

Concerning the sexual assault. I have characterized the response of the seminary as timely and appropriate. I take it that you ahve read the relevant links and quotes from seminary officials. Would you argue that anything in the seminary's response was inappropriate and/or untimely, and, if so, precisely why?

[Dave Roberts]

[Sandy]

[William Thornton]

These types of incidents were generally hushed up in earlier years, whether they occurred in churches or institutions. Things have changed.

[Gene Scarborough]

[Stephen Fox]

Reopen the question of SEBTS, and the way things played out there, with another thread.
History in the Revisit or some such; from the role of James Deloach, to Jerry Vines off campus meeting when the Peace Committee came to visit.

[Gene Scarborough]

What the heck do you mean, Stephen

[Stephen Fox]

Would be interesting to see you or Thornton to reopen the SEBTS debacle of 87 here at SBC Trends with a thread of its own,
and see how you both remember it and place it in the larger context of the upheaval of those years.

That is what I mean.

[Sandy]

[Gene Scarborough]

Sandy---

Not just "NO" but "HELL NO!!!!!"

The day of the Pharisee is here and now and CR is replete with it! Am I making myself clear enough for you to understand my message?