Its saddening to me how church leadership simply rallies around someone and protects them.
To be fair, the Easterns did excommunicate him. But then a less-conservative group warmly accepted him and installed him to a leadership position.
Conservative Anabaptists need to start doing background checks on "transfers".
At least in my circles they do. Have to have a letter from your prior church. There appears to be an exception for OO groups that never write letters for anyone.
Judas Maccabeus wrote:At least in my circles they do. Have to have a letter from your prior church. There appears to be an exception for OO groups that never write letters for anyone.
J.M.
Given how sociopaths and abusers seem to be skilled at having a sob story about how some ultra-conservative or O.O. group expelled them, perhaps doing a thorough investigation of membership transfers would be a good idea.
By the way it's not true that O.O. groups never write letters for anyone.
Judas Maccabeus wrote:At least in my circles they do. Have to have a letter from your prior church. There appears to be an exception for OO groups that never write letters for anyone.
J.M.
Given how sociopaths and abusers seem to be skilled at having a sob story about how some ultra-conservative or O.O. group expelled them, perhaps doing a thorough investigation of membership transfers would be a good idea.
By the way it's not true that O.O. groups never write letters for anyone.
Some near us won’t. Seriously our leadership has tried. I presume they know which are which.
Judas Maccabeus wrote:Some near us won’t. Seriously our leadership has tried. I presume they know which are which.
J.M.
Understood.
What is almost always possible is getting some kind of explanation of what their barriers to returning are and any "concerns" the O.O. group may have. If not in a formal letter, it's worth investigating and seeing what folks in the old church say and what the person's general reputation is.
I would be quite happy if anyone had checked up on my former church affiliation before I transferred somewhere else. To my surprise, nobody was remotely concerned with doing this, and believed whatever I said about my prior church at face value.
Grace wrote:
Its saddening to me how church leadership simply rallies around someone and protects them.
To be fair, the Easterns did excommunicate him. But then a less-conservative group warmly accepted him and installed him to a leadership position.
Conservative Anabaptists need to start doing background checks on "transfers".
Background checks were not the issue here.
It is my understanding that the Hope Church was warned about HH 's sexual allegations, by family prior to ordaining him. They chose to disregard the information & proceed.
Time4Truth wrote:Background checks were not the issue here.
It is my understanding that the Hope Church was warned about HH 's sexual allegations, by family prior to ordaining him. They chose to disregard the information & proceed.
In other words, they had the background check information . . . and blatantly disregarded it.
Are not the scriptures clear about the requirements to ordain a minister (bishop or deacon)? They must be blameless and of good reputation with "those who are without".
In this article Daniel Herr is reported to say, "The stigma of the times kept his mother from getting help. She ended her own life." Maybe this is causing the confusion. Perhaps the Herr family can clarify.
Trudy has a copy of Anna Mary Herr's death certificate on her site. It says she died from a cerebrovascular accident, which is a stroke. Whether she died from suicide or a stroke, doesn't really matter as it has nothing to do with the sordid allegations against Harold Herr.
You actually cannot determine that without an autopsy at the very least.
My younger sister’s death certificate SAYS she died from cardiac arrest and diabetes
She actually died from an overdose of prescription pain meds, coupled with alcohol. No autopsy was done, it was not sufficiently “suspicious “ and her attending MD was willing to sign a death certificate without one.
Just saying, you can’t always take that to the bank and cash it.
J.M.
This is absolutely true. Without an autopsy, COD is an educated guess.
Time4Truth wrote:Background checks were not the issue here.
It is my understanding that the Hope Church was warned about HH 's sexual allegations, by family prior to ordaining him. They chose to disregard the information & proceed.
In other words, they had the background check information . . . and blatantly disregarded it.
Are not the scriptures clear about the requirements to ordain a minister (bishop or deacon)? They must be blameless and of good reputation with "those who are without".
A recent case I heard of removed a minister for sexual harrassment allegations because of that very verse, I believe.
Time4Truth wrote:Background checks were not the issue here.
It is my understanding that the Hope Church was warned about HH 's sexual allegations, by family prior to ordaining him. They chose to disregard the information & proceed.
In other words, they had the background check information . . . and blatantly disregarded it.
Are not the scriptures clear about the requirements to ordain a minister (bishop or deacon)? They must be blameless and of good reputation with "those who are without".
That's a key issue here in my opinion. Although I don't know precisely what leadership roles if any HH filled in the past, I have the impression that it was not church leadership so much as missionary roles. I don't know for sure. Do these same biblical requirements for elders and deacons also apply to other roles in the work of the church? I.e., "missionary," youth leader, Bible study facilitator, event organizer, prison ministry leader?
mike wrote:That's a key issue here in my opinion. Although I don't know precisely what leadership roles if any HH filled in the past, I have the impression that it was not church leadership so much as missionary roles. I don't know for sure. Do these same biblical requirements for elders and deacons also apply to other roles in the work of the church? I.e., "missionary," youth leader, Bible study facilitator, event organizer, prison ministry leader?
In his book, he sure occupied the role of a church leader, officiating baptisms and communion services in Haiti.
It should be obvious why such a person needs to be above reproach. Just to make this clear, none of your churches would accept me as a leader or to officiate such roles, even in a mission field, simply because of a history of divorce in my past and because I'm not married now.
