Posted on 06/10/2019 8:35:08 AM PDT by Morgana
FULL TITLE: Her Evangelical Megachurch Was Her World. Then Her Daughter Said She Was Molested by a Minister.
HURST, Tex. — Christi Bragg listened in disbelief. It was a Sunday in February, and her popular evangelical pastor, Matt Chandler, was preaching on the evil of leaders who sexually abuse those they are called to protect. But at the Village Church, he assured his listeners, victims of assault would be heard, and healed: “We see you.”
Ms. Bragg nearly vomited. She stood up and walked out.
Exactly one year before that day, on Feb. 17, 2018, Ms. Bragg and her husband, Matt, reported to the Village that their daughter, at about age 11, had been sexually abused at the church’s summer camp for children.
Since then, Matthew Tonne, who was the church’s associate children’s minister, had been investigated by the police, indicted and arrested on charges of sexually molesting Ms. Bragg’s daughter.
Ms. Bragg waited for church leaders to explain what had happened and thoroughly inform other families in the congregation. She waited for the Village to take responsibility and apologize. She waited to have even one conversation with Mr. Chandler, a leader she had long admired.
But none of that ever came.
“You can’t even take care of the family you know,” she remembered thinking as she walked out of the large auditorium. “Don’t tell more victims to come to you, because you’re just going to cause more hurt.”
Evangelical churches have long distanced themselves from the sexual abuse crisis that has consumed the Catholic Church. Many Southern Baptists have dismissed sexual abuse as a problem caused by “corrupt Hollywood” or “liberal theology.” But a reckoning has arrived.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
So tell me, just how does that affect their ability to drive out sexual predators from their pulpits? What you write is a distinction without a difference. Because they don't have an ecclesiastical hierarchy doesn't absolve them of collectively rooting out the rot within their “independent churches." Putting forth "repentance" as a solution is both laughable and criminal, and you should be ashamed to have anything to do with any "independent church" that seeks to hide criminal behavior of any kind, but particularly sexual abuse. I don't know how your God regards this stuff, but mine is dead set against it.
Saw the same thing at our Southern Baptist Church...married youth minister gets highschool senior pregnant....what a mess.
I get all the “looks not like a church” aspect of many mega churches, for sure.
Appearances aside, my point is why Pravda on the Hudson would do the story. My view is they have a political theme to sell, which is “all evangelical Christian mega churches are bad”. And any story they can find that would sell that theme gets a thumbs up from their editors.
Wait a sec. I don’t Support the SBC nor do I condone any church that tolerates or condones illegal behavior. I have no idea where your insinuations come from. I merely pointed out the SBC is not a denomination nor a church.
I am not in favor of youth ministers, many of whome are just beyond youth themselves. However, anyone involved with church youth needs supervison and precautions taken, regardless.
If only they would let them get married, this wouldn’t happen!
“Ms. Bragg nearly vomited. She stood up and walked out.
Exactly one year before that day, on Feb. 17, 2018, Ms. Bragg and her husband, Matt, reported to the Village that their daughter, at about age 11, had been sexually abused at the church’s summer camp for children.”
Why was she still attending that church?
The war has been going on since Eden.
Fighters on the wrong side may not be aware of it. They just may not even believe in their commander.
“I have no idea where your insinuations come from. “
Well, you seemingly wanted to give the SBC a “pass” on the mistaken theory that they since were not a theologically connected group, but rather just a bunch of Baptist Churches having some sort of non-binding allegiance, that they had no real role in addressing sexual predation within their ranks. I understand from what you wrote that they are sort of a “trade organization,” but I think to dismiss them because of that fact is a mistake. And from the article, it stated that their “new leader” wanted to have “repentance” be the operative remedy for the criminal behavior from within its ranks. I find that repugnant!
We must be transparent in hierarchy so that sin is too easily caught or at least exposed and then dealt with.
All churches and schools and workplaces and camps.
It’s a human problem.
actually most mega churches, evangelical or not seem shady these days. I mean if they are that great why does this site have a ping list watching out for stuff they do? Some how I get the drift that the little country church or some what average size has more going for it as far as faith and devotion than these mega monsters.
Lets get real okay. How many of these mega church pastors really visit every person in their congretation and pray for the sick in the hospital? Or do they send “deacons” and other lay people out to do it? They so big most of them don’t know your name unless you give a lot of money then they know you.
I dunno maybe it’s just me but these mega churches just seem cold and impersonal.
Where did I ever suggest I was “giving them a pass’? I merely pointed out a misstatement in the original article and are reading a bunch of unfounded assumptions into that.
That wasn’t The Village, it was an event in Atlanta at which he was speaking.
The Baptist church that I belong to (fundamental, Independent, and NOT a member of the SBC) would have turned in whomever did it to the police and run them out of the church on a rail. And tell the perp that he had a real problem and needed to repent AND do jail time.
Maybe you don’t need to paint with such a broad brush, eh?
One does not exclude the other. The ‘repentance’ called for is the entire denomination repenting of ignoring the problem for so long.
It doesn’t take a reading of the NYT to come to that conclusion.
The last Church I attended with my family before leaving for the Marines had a youth pastor become involved with one of the teenaged girls about six or seven years after I left home. They made sure the guy was arrested and supported the girl and her family. They were a member of the Southern Baptist Association as well.
Ultimately that church decided to disband and join other churches because the name had been tarnished, and it's not about a building anyway. The church is the people who follow Christ, not a building nor the group of people worshipping at some specific building alone.
Stockholm syndrome of a sort. Why don’t people leave cults when they, or their family members, are abused?
Unfortunately, most do look like that today.
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