Kitty's blog

Submitted Sept. 4, 2012 at 6:40 pm. http://religionscell.com/blog/?p=194

I was at the end of my ropes. I had been kicked out of school for being rebellious. My primary offense was going to the movies and watching rated PG-13 and rated R movies. But it was more than that. My thoughts did not align with my adoptive father, the IFB pastor. I was on my way out. I just needed to find that way out. I had been beaten black and blue to the point that I didn’t care anymore. I wasn’t allowed to talk to anyone. My life sucked and so did my dad. F- him.

Then it happened one Saturday, Mr. B. dropped my brother and I off from working all day at the cabinet shop. Dad met us at the front door. The first thing he said was for me to go straight to the basement. I saw him take Mr. B. into the living room to talk.

While I was in the basement my mind ran crazy. What do I do? Should sneak upstairs and run out the back door? Should I sneak out through the garage? No, they’re watching me. I’ll get caught and make this worse. I’ll just wait here and see what happens. And wait and wait. It seemed as if I waited forever.

Then the upstairs door finally opened and he came down. He just looked at me for a minute.

Ex-Realtor to appear in court on rape charges
Suspect was once community figure
By Trent Spiner / Monitor staff
June 16, 2010

Once a prominent Realtor and member of the Trinity Baptist Church in Concord, Ernest Willis is expected to face a judge today on charges that he raped and impregnated a 15-year-old girl he met through the church.

In criminal complaints filed against Willis, the Concord police said he raped Tina Anderson in a parking lot while teaching her to drive and again at her home, impregnating her in the summer of 1997. According to court records, Anderson became pregnant a month after Willis's wife gave birth to the third of their four children.

According to Anderson, when she alerted her mother and the church's pastor to her pregnancy, Willis financially supported a plan to move her away from Concord to deliver the baby - a move the police said hampered their investigation for 13 years.

Anderson would go on to give the baby up for adoption, while Willis remained a church member for seven years before being expelled over another matter.

Imagine for a moment that you’re a fundamentalist pastor who has just learned that a 15 year old girl in your congregation has been raped and is pregnant by a 39 year old member of your church. Now try to imagine what kind of thought process might lead you to decide that the proper way to proceed is to bring that teenager before the entire church to apologize for her part in being so thoughtless as to get raped and end up pregnant. Then imagine forcing her to write a letter to the wife of the rapist apologizing for your part in his crime. Of course you then send her away to another state and make sure that the baby is adopted off to another fundamentalist family. Tina was definitively coerced and TOLD to give the baby up for adoption. And she had *no choice* in who adopted the baby (other than filling out those anonymous surveys).
What kind of person would do this? Surely this must be some pastor from the darkest fringes of fundamentalism, someone so far outside the “mainstream” that they are almost unrecognizable as an Independent Baptist. Or perhaps not.
For the pastor in question is none other than Chuck Phelps, who left the scene of this outrage at Trinity Baptist Church to become President of Maranatha Baptist Bible College. To be fair to MBBC, they quickly realized that they were dealing with someone a little too far out for their taste and gave him the boot in the nicest way possible. He also is the chairman of the board of Central African Baptist College and sits as vice-chairman of the Fundamental Baptist Fellowship. Last but not least, as of 2008 he was listed as an adjunct professor at Bob Jones University’s school of religion and a member of their cooperating board(PDF).
Oh, but the story and connections don’t end there. For this paragon of fundy virtue now pastors on a church staff with none other than Bob Taylor, former pastor of the Campus Church at Pensacola Christian College. The ‘crazy fringe’ of fundyland is never as far from the center as it would seem.
Now let’s play another game of let’s pretend. Let’s imagine that you’re the current pastor of a church where all this happened. Let’s further imagine that like your predecessor you’re also a favored son of Bob Jones University and that you were actually there at the church while this travesty was being executed on this victim. What do you do now? Apologize? Issue a statement condemning what was done to the 15 year old girl? Or do you do damage control and cover for your old pastor even going so far as to send e-mail to your church members instructing them not to speak to anybody about the situation?
And then lastly imagine you’re a fundamentalist type who is observing this situation from the outside? Does your heart break over the injustice and your anger rise to think of the victim in the case? Or do you flee to your favorite fundamentalist message board and question whether the 15 year old girl may have seduced the 39 year old man and is to blame for the whole situation?
I can only assume that these people involved in the humiliation and condemnation of this girl cannot really believe in a righteous God Who’s justice is terrible toward those who hurt the innocent. If I had a scrap of mercy to spare for these miserably failed hirelings, I would be very, very afraid on their behalf. But I don’t. All I have is a small voice to expose their evil to as many as have ears to hear.
Destroyer of Innocents thy name is Fundamentalism.

I know Tina Anderson. This story has made national headlines.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/MindMoodNews/alleged-rape-victim-accuses-tr...
http://www.concordmonitor.com/article/troubling-story-from-trinity-bapti...

http://www.concordmonitor.com/article/victims-courage-may-lead-to-justic...
http://www.concordmonitor.com/article/police-girl-raped-then-relocated

The next one her brother speaks out for the first time.
http://www.fox59.com/news/wxin-pastor-rape-case-controversy-060310,0,229...

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/05/27/pregnant-teen-victim-recalls-public...

When I read Michael Pearl's arrogant response to what he refers to as his "critics" http://pearlchildtraining.blogspot.com/2010/03/michael-pearl-laughs-at-c... yesterday, I became physically ill. I thought to myself, Michael Pearl is insufferable. How wrong to bring up the plastic whip, to relate it to his dogs and chickens, and children. He shows absolutely no remorse. No clarifications. Just arrogance. At first, I thought he will answer someday to his God, you know!

This morning when I awoke this was still on my mind. I thought to myself, how many more children must die because of this man who looks like Santa Claus, teachings? Then anger started to rise up in me. I thought, "You've got to be kidding me! The ONLY good citizens, the only good employers, the only good anybodies will be those trained by the Pearl method?"

Arrogance indeed. It would be pitiful if it weren't so deadly in its application. Because his arrogant confidence is what makes so many insecure parents believe he must be right, because he claims this is God's way.

A lot of laughing at the pearl home....funny, I don't hear the dead children laughing!

I entertained thoughts such as, "If I were to ever see him using that 1/4 inch plumbing supply line on a dog, I would choke him. And on a child?! Oh, he wouldn't be laughing ever again!"