ClergySexualMisconduct.com

Gateway Church founder Robert Morris was handcuffed and escorted out of the Osage County District Court in Oklahoma on Thursday after pleading guilty to five counts of lewd or indecent acts to a child. Read more: bit.ly/48KsW9a

A few people have asked me what I meant when I said that I believe there’s an abuser / pedo ring in NAPARC. NAPARC is a group of Reformed denominations including the PCA and OPC (where I grew up) and URC, ARP, RCUS, and a handful of little denominations. Doug Wilson’s CREC is not in NAPARC (and to their credit, several NAPARC denominations have declared his theology heretical), but he’s a major influence in NAPARC and other Reformed circles. Anyway, in a nutshell, here’s why I think there’s an abuser / pedo network in NAPARC: As a kid, I knew around a dozen child abusers and sexual predators, which is way more than normal. One was my dad, obviously. I watched numerous church leaders either misunderstand or blatantly refuse to see red flags and protect me and my little sisters from abuse. One was a friend from church who moved his family down the street from us. He was later convicted of raping his own children. One was our church pianist and a close family friend. He was later convicted of raping his own children. One was our regional home missionary who abused his wife and daughters and propositioned me when I was a minor. One was a woman we knew from church who dragged her daughter up and down the hallway by her hair as “discipline,” and later encouraged her minor teen daughter to be involved with an adult man. One was a man who was close friends with my dad who was just creepy. His kids showed signs of clear neglect. My mom would bathe them when they visited. At least one of his kids ran away from home. One was accused of grounding or spanking his wife when she burned dinner or didn’t keep the house clean enough. Apparently, he even did this in front of company. This was considered weird, but nobody’s business. He was a pastor. My dad’s best friend from college wasn’t in NAPARC but they stayed in contact. He preyed on homeless teenage girls; offered them a home and then got them pregnant and married them (polygamy). Two were guys we met outside of church. My parents encouraged me to date adult men when I was 15 and 16. One is a convicted criminal now. The other is a male prostitute. There were probably others. Those are just the ones I’m recalling off the top of my head. One of our elders whenI was a teenager was into some pretty weird p0rn which I found in his living room while house sitting. That doesn’t make him a predator per se, but it’s a bizarre thing to leave in your DVD shelf when you’ve got a young woman house sitting. Looking back, I think he wanted me to find it. After it became publicly known that my dad was an abuser, he was shuffled out of our OPC church into a PCA church. Women and parents in that church were not warned about my dad. The pastor of that church was later fired for sexually harassing or abusing women and girls. Then my mom was excommunicated from a PCA church because she refused to get back together with my dad, even though church leaders knew he was a violent domestic abuser. On top of all that, several years ago, Jason and I met a lawyer friend for lunch at a wine bar. The lawyer mentioned off the cuff that there’s a pedo ring running from Houston Texas up through Moscow, Idaho. I was stunned and didn’t ask more questions. Later, via text, I asked them for details. They denied knowing what I was talking about. Normally, I’d consider it some kind of strange misunderstanding, but Jason was there too and remembers what they said. So, what am I supposed to think? There’s an abuser network in NAPARC.

🚨 Master's thesis published: 100% of clergy abuse victims experienced institutional betrayal. 115 survivors courageously shared their stories. Over half met the criteria for probable PTSD. DARVO tactics cause measurable harm. Institutions CAN do better. proquest.com/dissertations-t…