Anabaptist Sex Offender Watch List

[steve-in-kville]

I know this thread drifted a bit but here's my $2 worth....

The leadership in so many conservative Anabaptist churches is too corrupt to even attempt a "watch list." Leave this stuff to the law (although not perfect) and Megan's List.

You think we have problems now? Go ahead and make your list and watch the lawsuits fly. Knowingly making false accusations about child abuse, rape or assault is a felony. Keep that in mind.

[Matt]

I would like to say that if your concern is that she's accusing Stanley Fox without providing evidence then people made that same argument regarding Paul and Eli Weaver. There were a few people on social media platforms who were particularly adamant that Paul Weaver could not have possibly know and yet CAM's 2nd statement says otherwise. Trudy was correct about both of them knowing. So if that's your concern I suggest giving her the benefit of the doubt regarding Stanley Fox.

In comments about those who knew, there's a feeling I get that these men knew what was going on and didn't do anything about it. I don't believe that at all. I'm sure they knew there was this issue years ago and they made a judgement call (incorrectly we/they all say in hindsight) that it had been dealt with.

We make judgement calls about situations all the time. Those in leadership are called continually to make decisions. Of the thousands of good decisions Paul Weaver has made over the years, they are all obscured in peoples minds right now over this one decision that I can guarantee he wishes he could go back and change.

The reality is that this is going to happen again somewhere. The world is getting more wicked and in the end times there is going to be a great falling away. While I truly hope many people can learn from this experience to be the ever more wiser; in the future, circumstances will be different, and evil is no doubt going to rear its ugly head again.

To quote Theodore Roosevelt:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

[joshuabgood]

I agree with your analysis Matt. It is not necessary to demonize people...I like the way CAM put it. They were faithful in many ways, but this lapse in judgment comes with severe consequences, as it should. That decision not to report, not to inform the board of directors, etc, helped facilitate a situation where many innocent young boys were sexually molested by a serial predator.

The bottom line is, you must report. Failure to do so is a serious error that endangers children. We cannot afford to create an environment of protectionism for those who don't report.

[RZehr]

In comments about those who knew, there's a feeling I get that these men knew what was going on and didn't do anything about it. I don't believe that at all. I'm sure they knew there was this issue years ago and they made a judgement call (incorrectly we/they all say in hindsight) that it had been dealt with.

We make judgement calls about situations all the time. Those in leadership are called continually to make decisions. Of the thousands of good decisions Paul Weaver has made over the years, they are all obscured in peoples minds right now over this one decision that I can guarantee he wishes he could go back and change.

The reality is that this is going to happen again somewhere. The world is getting more wicked and in the end times there is going to be a great falling away. While I truly hope many people can learn from this experience to be the ever more wiser; in the future, circumstances will be different, and evil is no doubt going to rear its ugly head again.

To quote Theodore Roosevelt:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

Very good. This is what I've been thinking.

[Aurien]

I agree that the abuse of any one child is one too many, but it seems to me (from my experience working as a missionary myself) that an inordinate amount of attention is being focused on "protecting children from missionaries". Does anyone here realize what the "penalty" would normally be if the parent of a tribal child discovered that a foreigner had molested their son or daughter? In the setting in which we lived, there is no police force - they carry out their own retributions. With difficulty I convinced the father of a murder victim to not kill the perpetrator. (He did shoot over his head, but didn't try to hit him.) Even in the national culture (of Brazil), if a person dies in a traffic accident (regardless of fault), the driver of the vehicle will be severely beaten, if not killed on the spot. (This is a country where not too long ago a soccer referee was killed, beheaded, and his head put on a spike in the middle of the field for an unpopular call.)

I don't know if anyone from Haiti wants to kill Jeriah but they can't get to him anyway as long as he's in the States. The victims in Haiti are the ones getting death threats right now. Some people who are working or have worked in Haiti are sure that they will hear of some of the boys committing suicide because of the shame and stigma of what Jeriah did to them. So yeah at least in Haiti children need protected from missionaries.
I don't think it's an "inordinate amount of attention" to want to protect ANY children from sexual abuse. So what if the person's family or friends took revenge on the offender? The victim will still have to live with what's been done to them.

You changed the wording of my statement so missed the point I was making. The boys there needed protection from Jeriah, yes, but by saying they "need protection from missionaries" makes it sound like slander against all of the missionaries there, or perhaps all missionaries everywhere. THAT is untrue, and that is inordinate attention on mission workers, because missionaries are a very low offender group. How many cases can you name, against all of the thousands that happen every day in secular society? That's why I say that while ANY ABUSE of ANY CHILD is too much, the focus on missionaries in not going to be as productive in terms of prevention as a focus on groups of people who are far more likely to offend in this manner. I fear that people will now be afraid to give their lives for missionary work, and the Gospel will suffer. The point I was attempting to make with the remainder of my comments was that the danger of lethal violence against a perpetrator or even a perceived perpetrator is much higher in other countries than here in North America. In the city where we lived a group of taxi drivers took the law in their own hands against a person who had wronged them in some way, only they went to the wrong house, and killed the wrong person. SORRY! Wrong guy. We were often accused of using "mission work" as a front for being gold miners, or of manipulating the tribal people. Here if there is a protest parade of some type you might go over to see what it is about, and listen awhile. Brazil is not generally a violent country, in personal altercations they tend to just cuss one another out, then let it go, but we were strictly warned to stay away from large impromptu gatherings. (Actually, one of our coworkers once witnessed a conflict between civil & military police, where each one called in reinforcements, and they all had their guns out, including machine guns.) What I'm trying to say with these examples is that you do not need to increase the dangers for all missionaries because of one proven case.

I realize that by posting this I may be misconstrued as making excuses for Jeriah's sins against these children, and as attempting to divert ALL attention from ALL missionaries, but not so. I am as horrified as anyone else about this.

"THAT is untrue, and that is inordinate attention on mission workers, because missionaries are a very low offender group. How many cases can you name, against all of the thousands that happen every day in secular society?"

I don't think you can truthfully say that missionaries are a very low offender group without statistics to back that statement up. And of course there are going to be less cases of sexual abuse among missionaries than in secular society because there are less missionaries than there are "secular" people. Hypothetically speaking if 2 out of 100 missionaries sexually abuse and 20 out of 1,000 secular people sexually abuse then if my math is correct that's still 2% for each group.

[Ken]

The problem with watch lists and this sort of thing is that they are reactive. In this day and age with the national and international attention on sex crimes within church institutions (Catholic, Baptist, Evangelical, Anabaptist, etc.) church and secular instutions need to be proactive. What does that mean?

At a minimum, all church and church related institutions that come into contact with and have responsibility over children should have well established written standards for dealing with sex crimes and sinful behavior that may fall short of crime. This means all schools, preschools, summer camps, youth ministries, volunteer organizations, and international missions.

All employees and volunteers that come into contact with youth should answer detailed questionaires about their past history. Public school teachers currently do this as part of their employement contracts. When I was hired as a public school teacher I answered a long questionaire about this and other topics knowing that if I answered falsely on any question it would be grounds for dismissal should that ever come to light. If JM had done this in 2012 when he was re-hired and returned to Haiti he would have had to blatantly lie or else make his new supervisors aware of his entire past history. Would that have prevented him from returning? I don't know. But would certainly have provided grounds for sending him home or else making sure he was not in any job that involved contact with children.

All employees and volunteers in organizations that come into contact with children should undergo professional training on indentifying and combating abuse and other related issues. There are a lot of organizations that provide this sort of thing. You discuss it. You talk about scenarios and what-ifs. What do you do if you suspect a co-worker or supervisor? What are the warning signs to be aware of? What are the legal and ethical reporting requirements? What are the requirements of the organization (if different). And so forth. This should be mandatory for new employees and existing employees/volunteers.

Each organization should have written standards for how these issues are dealth with. How are they dealth with in the hiring process? What kinds of records are kept and how are they shared among affiliated organizations? What is the procedure for investigating reports? What are the obligations for supervisors? If a future employer calls with questions, what information is shared? There should be written policies for all of this. This is how organizations like CAM and other church affiliated organizations like schools and universities protect themselves and their employees. Because then you don't put supervisors and leaders in the difficult situation of having to make difficult decisions about problem employees on the fly based on their gut instinct and what they think "might be for the best" at that time. They simply follow the written policy and if they don't do so then they are putting themselves and their own careers in jeopardy.

Other organizations like schools have already gone a long way in developing these sorts of standards and procedures. So it isn't something that CAM and other anabaptist organizations would need to invent out of thin air. I'm sure there are lots of off-the-shelf examples and plenty of experts available to assist. For that matter, CAM and other anabaptist organizations may already be doing this. I don't really know. But it is clear in the case of JM that whatever was done was inadequate.

This is how you regain trust. You become proactive not reactive. You lay out strict new standard and procedures for the future, make them public for all to see, and then hold to them. And that is how you protect the reputations and safety of all the huge majority of church workers and volunteers who are not sexual predators and who are now being tainted and even endangered by the actions of a few.

[joshuabgood]

I agree with most of what you wrote Ken. But in JM's case, it wasn't that they didn't know. They knew. It was that they didn't report it...and instead let him back on the mission field with access to children anyway b/c they thought he had satisfactorily repented and amended his ways.

[Wade]

I agree with your analysis Matt. It is not necessary to demonize people...I like the way CAM put it. They were faithful in many ways, but this lapse in judgment comes with severe consequences, as it should. That decision not to report, not to inform the board of directors, etc, helped facilitate a situation where many innocent young boys were sexually molested by a serial predator.

The bottom line is, you must report. Failure to do so is a serious error that endangers children. We cannot afford to create an environment of protectionism for those who don't report.

Not only report, but such persons should not be put in a position of authority anywhere ever again.

Sexual abuse as has been said is another of the many forms of sexual immorality. But the reason it cannot be placed on the same level as the others is because it also involves position of influence and/or authority when it involves acts against children. It therefore is not a "moral failure" issue alone, it also includes a power and control issue which should bring red flags about such a person having any position of authority. And furthermore such sins never give such a person a "good report."
Even if the person is not qualifying to be a bishop I believe 1 Timothy 3 is at the heart of someone qualifying to take on any type of leadership position:

"Moreover he must have a good report of them which are without; lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil"

[RZehr]

I agree. Long ago I heard that the Holdemans have some sort of "forever" restriction on people who commit certain sins. Something like, if somebody does a certain thing they are excommunicated and can never be quite 100% restored, at least when it comes to membership or holding certain church positions? I'm sure I have it mixed up here. Maybe someone else can clarify?

[Ken]

I agree with most of what you wrote Ken. But in JM's case, it wasn't that they didn't know. They knew. It was that they didn't report it...and instead let him back on the mission field with access to children anyway b/c they thought he had satisfactorily repented and amended his ways.

That is exactly my point. If CAM had written standards in place that absolutely forbade the hiring or retaining of any individual with any history of sexual abuse then this problem would not have happened. The problem is that they had no written policies for how to deal with this situation and were left to make it up on the fly. Such as policy would have protected JMs supervisors who are now facing and end to their careers and possibly other more severe legal consequences.

If you wish to give second chances to individuals who may have problem behaviour in their past that does not rise to the level of criminality then perhaps you establish a different set of procedures such as the following: (1) no placement into positions with contact with children. There are plenty of other jobs to be done, (2) regular check-ins by supervisors to document progress, (3) mandatory counseling of some sort, (4) lots of documentation and follow-up. I'm not against giving people second chances but there should be a process for doing so that insures safety and protects the organization.