Biblical Mennonite Alliance and credential removal of past abusers

[JohnH]

The relevant question is what specific individuals knew, what responsibilities they had, and what they did (or didn't do) after receiving reports. If leadership received reports of wrongdoing in 2021, then the chronology matters considerably. Were allegations that involved children reported immediately to the appropriate authorities? Were records maintained and evidence preserved? Did anyone discourage reporting, interfere with investigators, or make false representations? These are questions that need answers before anyone can predict criminal liability.

Your language is very vague. "If leadership"... what leadership? The board of the orphanage? The board of BMA itself (which doesn't have much responsibility outside of arranging an annual meeting)?

It sounds like you think some individuals might have answers that would expose them to criminal prosecution. Do you plan to Mirandise them first before questioning them? Such a person would certainly have a right (and it would be in their best interest) to not answer any more questions without their lawyer present, and the most likely result is they aren't going to say diddly squat.

This timeline warrants an independent examination. Who knew what and when? And what did they do with what they knew?

Independent examination by whom? And why would anyone consent to such an independent examination?

Leadership resigning during this time opens the door for more questions.

The people who resigned were clear on why they resigned (one of them was "responsibility without authority", a very common problem in federations.)

Being affiliated with BMA doesn't make me criminally responsible for somebody else's conduct. I think we both know that.

Interesting - because just above, you seemed to be saying it did.

[GelassenheitBnksi]

The question might also be who the feds might pursue?

It might not be just the offenders. If executives knew and did nothing, they could also have liability. Remember BMA gave the orphanage a clean bill of health and then the children were removed by Mexican authorities for abuse and neglect. BMA leadership had reports on wrongdoing dating to 2021.

The likelihood of a federal indictment (let alone a conviction) on the above is about zero, although I'd be interested to hear your legal opinion about where, exactly, a crime has occurred because "BMA" (are you expecting BMA to be criminally prosecuted?) gave a "clean bill of health" and then some foreign government decides there is a problem.

I notice your affiliation says "BMA". Perhaps, in your imagination, you're responsible too, but I'm starting to think you don't have a very strong understanding of how organisations work from a legal perspective.

Johnh is right, the fact BMA gave the orphanage a clean bill of health is not criminal, and I didn't intend to suggest that simply belonging to BMA creates criminal liability.

The relevant question is what specific individuals knew, what responsibilities they had, and what they did (or didn't do) after receiving reports. If leadership received reports of wrongdoing in 2021, then the chronology matters considerably. Were allegations that involved children reported immediately to the appropriate authorities? Were records maintained and evidence preserved? Did anyone discourage reporting, interfere with investigators, or make false representations? These are questions that need answers before anyone can predict criminal liability.

I'll withdraw the suggestion that federal indictments follow from what has been publicly shared. My larger point is that 1) an organization says that everything was fine, 2) Mexican authorities remove the children amid abuse and neglect concerns, 3) leadership had reportedly been receiving concerns for years.

This timeline warrants an independent examination. Who knew what and when? And what did they do with what they knew?

Leadership resigning during this time opens the door for more questions.

Being affiliated with BMA doesn't make me criminally responsible for somebody else's conduct. I think we both know that.

BMA leadership had formally rejected the requests for an independent inquiry earlier in July. Possibly, due to public pressure it's being reconsidered. Don't see it happening, but a good surprise would be welcomed.

One thing is certain. Eicher is only the tip of the iceberg. The story remains hidden for now, but with time the truth will be made known. It always does. FB is not an ideal place for that to happen. Sometimes I wonder if that's the only tool God is left to work with because of the levels of institutional and cultural pride that get in the way of righteous decision making among our people. Not ideal, but God allowed the light to shine on CAM through FB and a Canadian blogger. Would she even need to exist in this role if we would face these issues head on with humility? That is a question I think about often.

[JohnH]

One thing is certain. Eicher is only the tip of the iceberg. The story remains hidden for now, but with time the truth will be made known. It always does. FB is not an ideal place for that to happen. Sometimes I wonder if that's the only tool God is left to work with because of the levels of institutional and cultural pride that get in the way of righteous decision making among our people. Not ideal, but God allowed the light to shine on CAM through FB and a Canadian blogger. Would she even need to exist in this role if we would face these issues head on with humility? That is a question I think about often.

Instead of being vague, why don't you share what your actual allegations or suspicions are?

[GelassenheitBnksi]

One thing is certain. Eicher is only the tip of the iceberg. The story remains hidden for now, but with time the truth will be made known. It always does. FB is not an ideal place for that to happen. Sometimes I wonder if that's the only tool God is left to work with because of the levels of institutional and cultural pride that get in the way of righteous decision making among our people. Not ideal, but God allowed the light to shine on CAM through FB and a Canadian blogger. Would she even need to exist in this role if we would face these issues head on with humility? That is a question I think about often.

Instead of being vague, why don't you share what your actual allegations or suspicions are?

Vague? Well, (1) Eicher has admitted to sexually assaulting children, (2) two senior leadership staff in BMA resigned because of the orphanage situation, (3) the leaders have stated that the whistleblowers shining light on the abuse have been denigrated (4) orphan children were forcefully removed from the orphanage by Mexico authorities because of the abusive conditions, (5) there are statements that exist from whistleblowers of sexual abuse and physical violence playing out across several years, (6) allegations of shady financial conduct, (7) multiple reports have allegedly been made to authorities by individuals who deemed the actions to be criminal in nature.

Not looking good at this point on any front, that's the only thing that isn't vague at the moment.

When will the general public have access to these reports? That's impossible to say when, if ever. Maybe BMA releases a report in time?

[JohnH]

Vague? Well, (1) Eicher has admitted to sexually assaulting children, (2) two senior leadership staff in BMA resigned because of the orphanage situation, (3) the leaders have stated that the whistleblowers shining light on the abuse have been denigrated (4) orphan children were forcefully removed from the orphanage by Mexico authorities because of the abusive conditions, (5) there are statements that exist from whistleblowers of sexual abuse and physical violence playing out across several years, (6) allegations of shady financial conduct, (7) multiple reports have allegedly been made to authorities by individuals who deemed the actions to be criminal in nature.

Not looking good at this point on any front, that's the only thing that isn't vague at the moment.

When will the general public have access to these reports? That's impossible to say when, if ever. Maybe BMA releases a report in time?

That's still all quite vague. It sounds like Eicher is the only offender here, too.

[GelassenheitBnksi]

Vague? Well, (1) Eicher has admitted to sexually assaulting children, (2) two senior leadership staff in BMA resigned because of the orphanage situation, (3) the leaders have stated that the whistleblowers shining light on the abuse have been denigrated (4) orphan children were forcefully removed from the orphanage by Mexico authorities because of the abusive conditions, (5) there are statements that exist from whistleblowers of sexual abuse and physical violence playing out across several years, (6) allegations of shady financial conduct, (7) multiple reports have allegedly been made to authorities by individuals who deemed the actions to be criminal in nature.

Not looking good at this point on any front, that's the only thing that isn't vague at the moment.

When will the general public have access to these reports? That's impossible to say when, if ever. Maybe BMA releases a report in time?

That's still all quite vague. It sounds like Eicher is the only offender here, too.

Give it a little time. Your visibility will improve.

[JohnH]

Give it a little time. Your visibility will improve.

It won't. I am not on the inside track with BMA and am not part of it. If you have something to tell us, you should share it here.

[I Timothy]

@ernie thanks for sharing that link. I was wondering where to start in replying to Grace. We have been talking about this in our newsletters for the last few years. Gatherings led by former students have been helpful by allowing us to hear what it was like to be a student in the residential schools in the 60s to 1991, when the schools closed. The TRC investigations documented the abuses, the student stories confirm the abuses, the staff stories corroborated the student stories. The abuses were institutional and administrative in nature. The institutions needed to end, and were ended in 1991. The pain and trauma continues today. Some find healing, some do not.

This thread has been significant for me as there is so much overlap between the LOH story and the Indian residential schools story. Both have connections to Gothard’s teachings, both have a hardcore approach to missions, both have fearless and untouchable leaders at the helm with rather extremist views on submission, family values, with larger than life ministry image and a trail of people with tears and questions along with a trail of diehard fans and imitators who protect and prop them up.

The underpinning of the whole saga is a lack of being able to hear the people we are serving. They matter, a lot more than our supposed ministry vision or methods. Christ didn’t call us to fix all the social problems in society. He told us to love the Lord and our neighbor as ourselves. Institutionalizing abuse is not loving our neighbor or the Lord.

FlyingNorm's point about the residential schools was not that LOH and the residential-school system were identical. There seems to be an institutional pattern that develops when ministry becomes better at defending its mission and methods than at hearing the people it is called to serve.

This happened at LOH. Concerns were being raised by caregivers and others well before the situation finally came to a head. Yet one of the most troubling things we have learned is that the committee sent to investigate apparently did not interview the LOH residents themselves.

Who listened to the cries of the children? Who listened to the cries of the staff?

This goes straight to flyingnorm's point: “The underpinning of the whole saga is a lack of being able to hear the people we are serving.”

JohnH's request for specifics is fair. Allegations should not automatically be treated as established facts. But neither are we dealing simply with vague Facebook insinuations anymore. Multiple caregivers and former workers have raised serious questions about what happened and how leadership responded.

Maybe the most important question for BMA is really simple, did BMA actually listen to the people they said they were serving?

Remember residents weren't interviewed while caregivers repeatedly raised concerns. Then whistleblowers concluded that they had to go outside normal BMA channels to be heard. We see that FB isn't the real problem. The breakdown in listening came first.

Christ did not give us institutions so that we could protect institutions. He called us to love our neighbor. When vulnerable people are telling us they are being harmed, protecting them has to matter more than protecting our ministry, leaders, or reputation.

[JohnH]

This happened at LOH. Concerns were being raised by caregivers and others well before the situation finally came to a head. Yet one of the most troubling things we have learned is that the committee sent to investigate apparently did not interview the LOH residents themselves.

My conference operates a care home (similar to an orphanage) in the U.S., but the residents are all infants. It's not really reasonable to expect them to somehow interview babies or young children, although perhaps older children were at LOH. In any case, children are never considered to be reliable witnesses.

Maybe the most important question for BMA is really simple, did BMA actually listen to the people they said they were serving?

I keep asking you to define what BMA is. It's not the Vatican. BMA is, fundamentally, a board that puts together an annual meeting, publishes a newsletter, and maintains a directory. You keep saying phrases like "did BMA actually listen", but you aren't clarifying which committee, working group, etc., you would expect to be doing the listening.

Christ did not give us institutions so that we could protect institutions. He called us to love our neighbor. When vulnerable people are telling us they are being harmed, protecting them has to matter more than protecting our ministry, leaders, or reputation.

And the entire structure of BMA so far has been to be very light and not top-down or heirarchical or powerful, yet you keep arguing for how it's important to recreate the Vatican.

There's really no "institution" of BMA to protect. I suspect most BMA churchgoers don't really care about the national alliance at all.

[I Timothy]

This happened at LOH. Concerns were being raised by caregivers and others well before the situation finally came to a head. Yet one of the most troubling things we have learned is that the committee sent to investigate apparently did not interview the LOH residents themselves.

My conference operates a care home (similar to an orphanage) in the U.S., but the residents are all infants. It's not really reasonable to expect them to somehow interview babies or young children, although perhaps older children were at LOH. In any case, children are never considered to be reliable witnesses.

Maybe the most important question for BMA is really simple, did BMA actually listen to the people they said they were serving?

I keep asking you to define what BMA is. It's not the Vatican. BMA is, fundamentally, a board that puts together an annual meeting, publishes a newsletter, and maintains a directory. You keep saying phrases like "did BMA actually listen", but you aren't clarifying which committee, working group, etc., you would expect to be doing the listening.

Christ did not give us institutions so that we could protect institutions. He called us to love our neighbor. When vulnerable people are telling us they are being harmed, protecting them has to matter more than protecting our ministry, leaders, or reputation.

And the entire structure of BMA so far has been to be very light and not top-down or heirarchical or powerful, yet you keep arguing for how it's important to recreate the Vatican.

There's really no "institution" of BMA to protect. I suspect most BMA churchgoers don't really care about the national alliance at all.

JohnH, I think your question of, "which leadership?" is a fair question. 

I have used “BMA” as shorthand and as a generalized term. There was LOH management, the Mexican Orphanage Committee, DNI, BMA Board of Executors, BMA Council of Overseers, and the committee that investigated the concerns. Different people had different responsibilities and information at various times. I need a flowchart to track it all.

Establishing the chain is important. 

When caregivers raised concerns about restraints, sexual behavior between residents, assaults on caregivers, inadequate training, staffing levels, and the need for outside professional help, who received those concerns? What did supervisors know? What reached the Mexico board? What reached BMA administrative or executive personnel (these were BMA W-2 employees)? Did the investigating committee review written reports? Who did they actually interview privately?

These questions matter because concerns were not singular or isolated. They were raised to different positions at different times.

That then brings us back to the investigation. If residents and caregivers were making allegations about what happened inside LOH, can an investigation be evaluated merely by saying that a committee went to Mexico and investigated. Why did they only interview LOh leadership? Did they interview the people alleging harm? What documents did they review? Who was or who was not given access to the findings?

I am willing to concede that saying simply “BMA leadership knew” was imprecise. The answer to that imprecision isn't “BMA isn't the Vatican.” The answer is to identify what individuals and which committees were involved.

Who knew what and when? And what did they do?

Most importantly, did the people investigating the institution actually listen to the children and staff individually who were living through this? The children are not infants. They can communicate what happened to investigators. 

If the evidence ultimately clears particular people or committees, i will happily admit it. But these are reasonable questions. After everything that allegedly happened at LOH, they deserve specific answers.