Posted on 03/21/2018 10:30:51 AM PDT by Gamecock
MEMPHIS — A pastor accused of sexually assaulting a teenage girl in Texas 20 years ago resigned from his ministerial post Tuesday at a Memphis megachurch.
Andy Savage, teaching pastor at Highpoint Church and part of the church's senior leadership team, follows a leave of absence and lengthy investigation by Scott Fredricks, a Fort Worth lawyer whose specialties include assisting churches with child-abuse investigations.
Savage's fall culminates more than two months of accusations and soul-searching over a case that became symbolic of the #churchtoo offshoot of the #metoo movement.
While the investigation found no other instances of abuse, "the leadership team at Highpoint Church agrees that Andy's resignation is appropriate," officials at the nondenominational church with campuses in Memphis and suburban Collierville, Tenn., announced in a statement.
The church's statement is the first time its leadership has termed the encounter involving Savage as "abuse."
Jules Woodson, the woman who accused Savage, said she was "trying to process" the news Tuesday afternoon and would have a statement soon.
In addition to the letter from church leaders, Savage posted a personal letter on the church website Tuesday.
Your passionate opinions on this important matter have truly helped me to gain perspective that I simply could not have achieved on my own. I have come to understand Jules' vantage point better, and to appreciate the courage it took for her to speak up.
While Jules cried out for justice, I carelessly turned the topic to my own story of moral change, as if getting my own life in order should help to make up for what she went through and continues to go through. Savage did not offer specifics about what his next steps would be but said he would "step away from ministry in order to do everything I can to right the wrongs of the past."
In its letter, church leadership said it had come to recognize "that it was defensive rather than empathetic in its initial reaction to Ms. Jules Woodson's communication concerning the abuse she experienced."
Church leadership and members received national criticism over a video that showed Savage getting a standing ovation from the congregation after discussing the case.
The church said it "humbly commits" to develop a deeper understanding of an appropriate and compassionate response to abuse victims. The statement also urged anyone with suspicions of child abuse to report them to the Tennessee Department of Children's Services or local law enforcement.
Woodson was a 17-year-old high school senior in 1998 at the time of the alleged assault involving Savage. He was her 22-year-old youth pastor at Woodlands Parkway Baptist Church in Spring, Texas, a Houston suburb.
In January when the encounter came to light on the Wartburg Watch website, Woodson said Savage took her to a secluded area when he supposed to be driving her home from church. She said he asked her to perform oral sex but then changed his mind and asked her not to say anything.
In a radio interview shortly after that, Savage said he remembered the moment as a spontaneous and consensual situation.
Another pastor at Woodlands Parkway who was involved in the incident resigned in February from his post at an Austin, Texas, church following an investigation similar to Savage's.
Larry Cotton, the pastor that Woodson told about the abuse, resigned from The Austin Stone Community Church in February. Cotton said in a letter to church members that he decided to step down from his ministry leadership position after coming to understand "the weight of my mistakes."
"I now understand that I did not do enough to serve Jules and help her feel protected and cared for," Cotton wrote in his letter. "I understand that I failed to report sexual abuse. I wish I had reported to the proper authorities."
Savage left the Texas church quietly following the incident, returning home to Memphis where he worked at Germantown Baptist Church and eventually took the post at Highpoint. Leaders at Highpoint were aware of the Texas incident when they hired Savage.
In a New York Times video published earlier this month, Woodson said she looked up to Savage and trusted him before the 1998 encounter. Afterward, she said church leaders didn't handle it properly.
What happened was a crime," Woodson said. "This is not something the church should handle internally. ... We as a church, of all places, should be getting this right."
Woodson contacted Texas authorities after the case was publicized in January, but they said the statute of limitations had expired. Texas law in effect at the time would have made charges difficult, anyway, they told her.
In addition to Fredricks' investigation into Savage, Highpoint has retained MinistrySafe, also based in Fort Worth, to review the church's child protection practices. MinistrySafe said its work would not begin until the Savage investigation concluded.
Exactly. A minister must be “above reproach.” Once again like clockwork all the sex-sick people on this forum crawl out of the woodwork to justify and defend moral perversion.
Twenty years ago? How long will this madness go on? Is no one safe from anything they’ve ever done?
**Andy Savage, teaching pastor at Highpoint Church and part of the church’s senior leadership team, **
Hmmmmm
>>A minister must be “above reproach.” Once again like clockwork all the sex-sick people on this forum crawl out of the woodwork to justify and defend moral perversion.
Don’t make stuff up. No one did that and you know it. If he drove her somewhere and asked for, but didn’t actually engage in, a sex act, then an apology and resignation from that job should suffice. Before getting back into the ministry, I would recommend serious counseling, and maybe he not get back into it at all. I’m not saying in this case the girl wasn’t a victim at all, but she wasn’t sexually (or really in any way) “abused.”
THAT is what the original article seemed to suggest.
However, if there was an inappropriate act of any kind, then yeah, he needs to stay out of the ministry. If they had pushed this at the time, then yeah, he deserved prosecution.
I don’t think anyone on this thread would disagree with the gist of what I’ve written here.
Oh, and by the way, I counsel and consult with ministers all the time and in no way would defend moral perversion.
Sounds like you read your Bible with an Exacto knife to cut out those pesky moral imperatives.
A quick guess - you subscribe to that antinomian New Covenant Theology error.
My point is that we shouldn't allow the media to hold Christians to a higher standard than anyone else. You, as a Christian, have every right to hold other Christians to a high standard.
Judge not lest ye be judged does not mean that you shouldn't judge others. It means you shouldn't judge others without being willing to submit to the same level of scrutiny. The liberal media types do not insist on any moral standards for anyone except Christians. The media only report the moral failings of Christians when it serves the purpose of making Christians look like hypocritical idiots. I'm not willing to play that game.
So that is the lens you are going to use to look through with what this pastor did?
Talk about turning mountains into molehills.
Just trying to put some perspective behind the words that a certain man said many years ago. Those words being something about he who is free from sin throwing the first stone.
I asked you to examine your soul and really get down to the roots of why you go out of your way to post such an article.
Congratulations on your qualifications. Unfortunately, if you fail to see all the “sex-sick” people on this forum who are quick to “wink wink” excuse and defend sexual immortality, then I suspect you have the same problem, namely, wanting to excuse your own behavior. BTW I also have “qualifications”, i.e. terminal degree (Ph.D)
>>Unfortunately, if you fail to see all the “sex-sick” people on this forum who are quick to “wink wink” excuse and defend sexual immortality, then I suspect you have the same problem, namely, wanting to excuse your own behavior.
Please provide a list of all such people.
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