Sex Abuse Cases: New Allegations
August 15, 2016: One Adventist educator in Washington state has entered a guilty plea in a case previously reported by Adventist Today, while another has evidently made implicit admissions according to a newspaper report. An April 7 news story in Adventist Today reported the arrests of Douglas Allison, principal of Mountain View Christian School in Sequim, Washington, and Donald Mansell, former financial manager and athletic director at Livingstone Adventist Academy in Salem, Oregon.
Allison pleaded guilty to two instances of rape of a child and child molestation in Clallam County Superior Court on August 4, according to the Sequim Gazette Reporter. He “admitted to sexual contact and intercourse with the female victims, then 10 and 11 years old starting in September 2015,” the newspaper reported. The sentencing hearing has been scheduled for September 14 and he could face up to 24 years in prison. He has been fired by the denomination’s Washington Conference.
Mansell is involved in plea bargaining between his attorney and prosecutor Spencer Gwartney, who was brought in from another county to prosecute the case due to the fact that Mansell’s father-in-law is a judge in Marion County, reported the Statesman Journal newspaper in Salem, Oregon. A retired judge from another county has been assigned to preside over the case.
Charged with three misdemeanor counts of third degree sexual abuse, he “was reportedly offered a plea bargain of 90 days in jail, five years of probation and lifetime registration as a sex offender in exchange for the prosecution dropping one count,” the newspaper stated. “Mansell refused to agree to be on the sex offender registry,” which means that he was evidently willing to plead guilty to two counts.
Two lawyers representing the alleged victims in the Mansell case told the newspaper that they thought the prosecutor’s offer was “much too lenient.” They have filed a lawsuit claiming $5.25 million in damages for one of Mansell’s alleged victims. It alleges that the Adventist school had a duty to protect the child from harm and that both physical and mental health damages have resulted from his abuse of her, according to the newspaper.
Jo Perini-Abbot, the lawyer representing the denomination’s Oregon Conference, told the newspaper that the organization is aware of the allegations. “The Church is doing all it can to address this situation responsibly,” she was quoted.
Two New Cases in Miami and Zimbabwe
In late June, Mwon Taylor, a teacher at Miami Union Academy, the Adventist secondary school in the largest city in Florida, was arrested and charged with five counts of sexual battery and 15 counts of lewd molestation on a child between 12 and 16 years of age, according to the CBS Television station in Miami (Channel 4) and several newspapers. The police reported that a student told her mother that when she was in the eighth grade, she was “forced to perform oral sex,” but also stated the girl told them the sexual activity was consensual. Police clarified that a child of her age could not legally give consent. The incidents occurred in 2011 and 2012.
“It came to our attention that an alleged incident occurred involving a former student … and a faculty member,” Renee P. Hodges, the school’s principal, said in a statement. “We are deeply saddened. … The school’s administration is in complete cooperation with the authorities and their investigation.”
Taylor is being held without bail being determined as of the most recent report. The neighbors near his home expressed shock to television reporters who contacted them. To date, Adventist Today has not been able to find updated information on the status of this case. It has not been settled and in the United States, an accused individual is legally innocent until proven guilty.
A radio news station and two newspapers in Bulawayo, the second largest city in Zimbabwe, reported during the second week of July that a woman who is a church member and a lawyer has alleged that Pastor Brighton Ndebele of the City Centre Adventist Church solicited her for sex, including sending suggestive text messages. She is married to another “prominent legal practitioner,” but none of the news reports identify her by name. Bulawayo 24 News reported that the women “decided to go ahead and bring the matter to the authorities after the church had declined to punish the pastor,” citing “a source privy to the goings on at the church.”
The B-Metro newspaper has possession of the “raunchy messages” the pastor sent to the women. It is a widely read tabloid in the city. The radio station said that when they asked the woman for comment she confirmed the incidents, but “said she was not at liberty to comment as the matter was still yet to come before the courts.”
When Ndebele was ask for comment, he told the radio news, “The allegations are not true. I think she fabricated them to fix me since she is having problems with her husband and I was shocked when I discovered that she had reported the matter to the police.” Ask about the text messages, he said, “We have been chatting as friends and I did not have intention of soliciting for sex from her.”
What strikes me is how, as hard as our leaders and insurers push for background checks and training, people like this still get through the filter into our system. Is there anything that can be done?
The problem, of course, is that background checks can protect against repeat offenders, but they cannot prevent the first offense.
As I have repeatedly commented here and elsewhere, if we want to reduce the first offenses among us, we need to proactively “inoculate” potential victims against potential offenders.
How can we do this? By intentionally educating the most vulnerable (eg adolescent students, Pathfinders, etc) IN ADVANCE, of what constitutes an inappropriate advance, how to respond (and how NOT to respond), whom to approach for help, etc.
This should become a top priority of our Youth Ministries, Sabbath School, etc leaders.
I actually addressed this topic when I led a Jr High SS class. It was one of the quietest classes ever. They said very little but they paid very close attention to the various topics I discussed.
Jim, it is hard for me to believe that Mr. Allison, already in late-middle-age, committed his first offense when he arrived in Sequim. One always finds that there’s a history. In the case of Donald Mansell, it was suddenly revealed that he’d had a long history of doing this. Yet it was never identified, or taken seriously? Hard to believe.
Loren,
I agree that there may have been a long concealed history of private misconduct.
But if we were pro-active about teaching potential victims how to respond to improper advances, these private actions would be called-out early on. It is ultimately the victims who must resist and report private mis-deeds if they are to be cut-short rather than proliferating and perpetuating.
One of the strongest arguments used by perpetrators is convincing the victims that there is nothing wrong with what is happening, that they are “special”, that nobody else should know, that nobody else will believe them, that they will suffer repercussions if they tell, etc. All lies but all unfortunately persuasive on the impressionable young mind.
I agree that we will never put a end to all evil in this life. But within our own ranks we need to do what we can do and know how to do to prevent these ugly actions and limit their consequences upon the victims.
In this regard background checks can only “close the barn door after the horse is gone”. And they provide a cloak of plausible deniability for the employers.
I understand the indelicacy of telling children and youth that their parents and teachers and pastors and youth leaders may take advantage of them. But we do live in an evil world and guess what? Most adolescents are well aware of this. It is the adults who are fooling ourselves by trying to “protect their innocence”.
Jim Hamstra: “Indelicacy” — (?) of telling our children that adults may take advantage of them…
Really? It’s “indelicate” to tell our children how to protect their own bodies? Is it indelicate to tell them not to run out into the street? Is it indelicate to tell them to not take food from a stranger? Is it indelicate to tell them to not get into a car with someone they don’t know? We are way past the concept of “indelicacy” here and like you said later it is up to us to protect them from danger. Our children should be learning this information even before kindergarten. It used to be said that “but we don’t want to scare our children” by talking about these things. We adults need to realize that sometimes it is necessary to “scare” them in order to keep them safe. We need to overcome our own sexual hangups so we can talk to them in responsible parenthood.
Loren,
My wife has for many years taught church school in the Oregon Conference. I cannot speak for all other conferences, but I can tell you that for may years in the Oregon Conference education department these matters have been taken VERY seriously. Not only background checks but also regular briefings on how to spot signs of abuse, how to report, etc.
What many people who have not been abused do not understand, is how clever abusers are at concealing their actions. As one who was sexually abused as a young child (not in a SDA organization but in a largely SDA town) I am convinced that telling potential victims IN ADVANCE (and in an age-appropriate manner) what to beware of and how to respond, is the best means of protecting them and “outing” the perpetrators.
We need a clarification here. Screening doesn’t identify repeat offenders. It identifies offenders who have been arrested. The result is that if they are not reported the first time, offenders may continue until they are caught — even if the interval between first offence and first arrest is decades. The suggestion that we should teach children to recognize, reject, and report inappropriate advances is important whatever else we may do.
Jim,
One of the problems with background checks is the legal limitations on what can be searched. Another problem is the legal limitations on what can be asked about in a job interview, or when a supervisor becomes suspicious of improper behavior by a subordinate. Those limits allow immoral behavior to continue for extended periods of time before they become apparent, often in a way that the reality of the situation explodes into the public consciousness of the church, or school constituency like a bomb going off.
At some point the question is asked about how a sex abuse situation could have been detected and dealt with, or even prevented. Unfortunately, very few of those questions ever get more than an inadequate examination before attention moves on to other topics.
The fact that evil persists, and that it seeps into the tiniest interstices of life should hardly surprise you, Loren. Nor should it surprise you that humans cannot devise impenetrable shields to protect the innocent against evil – at least not without an unacceptable sacrifice of freedom.
Of course this is hardly a reason to throw up our hands and to give up on the quest to find reasonable measures to mitigate evil. But it should make us keenly aware that dealing definitively with evil is a task which can only be accomplished by a Savior and Redeemer – not by human ingenuity or moral will.
Loren I believe it’s education. We need more than a top-down fiat, although that wouldn’t hurt. But as with the church itself, grassroots movements that sway the top through sheer numbers are the ones that last. I’ve seen improvements in general Adventist understanding in my lifetime–not fast enough, but I see it. We need to help people understand that for a spiritual leader to have sex with a congregant is always abuse, abuse of the office and most often abuse of the person too. That’s the core message I think we need to convey.
There is a lot of evil out there Loren; hard to believe in many cases.
Jim is right, there is no way to anticipate; our only hope is to create strong children, teach them what to look out for and to scream. We can increase and monitor the public, but this just as prevalent in private. We need to teach and watch out for others and their children in this also. It takes us all to take care of us all. Picking up the pieces is…… no words to describe.
It is misleading for the article to state that in the United States “an accused individual is legally innocent until proven guilty.” This so-called presumption of innocence only applies to criminal prosecutions. It precludes government authorities from imposing punishment until the accused pleads guilty or is proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in accordance with due process and the substantive rule of law.
Too often the presumption of innocence is invoked as Kryptonite to preclude the public from forming or expressing opinions, or to preclude employers from taking action against the accused. Employers, fellow church members and others can and should operate on a different standard of moral proof than is required in the criminal justice system. There is no presumption of innocence and no requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt where the authority to convict of a crime and imprison is absent.
This is a criminal issue. The individuals were charged in such.
The employer as well as we, have the requirement to operate as such; assuming innocence. The guilty plea does impact such. We as a Church can do anything within our Religious Freedom; but should be toleranced as such.
Reaction is way toooo late. I would hope that this is approached and addressed proactively. I would hope that anyone in the Church employee would be informed of the legal and reporting requirements as such; often?
Why should we assume innocence, Conviction, when we have reliable information to indicate that an assumption of innocence is not warranted? Of course there are criminal proceedings. But what does that have to do with the civil and ecclesiastical realms? What authority can you cite for the proposition that an employer, in dealing with an employee accused of sexual misconduct, is bound by rules
applicable to criminal jurisprudence? Of course a guilty plea makes it easy for the employer to act. But the employer should not, and does not, have to await the resolution of criminal proceedings before taking appropriate disciplinary action.
To put it as tactfully as possible, you don’t know what you are talking about.
Nathan is exactly right. Employers have no obligation in general to indulge a presumption of innocence. Most states operate under “at will” employment – which means the employee can quit for any or no reason, and the employer can fire an employee for any or no reason. The exceptions occur when it comes to protection of minority rights (which is unlikely to be involved in these kinds of cases), or when there exists some sort of contractual rights – which are very likely to be involved in cases involving church employees. When I was on the conference K-12 board I fought against these procedural limitations. But, I lost. My fellow board members did not trust administrators to act in a Christian manner, and they preferred to make the church a target for litigation. Thus, while Nathan is exactly right about the innocence presumption, the church is hampered by its self-imposed procedural requirements.
Nathan, the father, citizen and Christian in me says………. lskf;ashw……. it’s hard.
Personally, I think you would have to pray for me in jail if anything like this happened to my family.
Maybe not a good testimony; but the truth.
Yes. It is difficult not to let intense feelings of anger and outrage take over when children and young people are abused. When I was a prosecutor, I found it easier to treat murderers with respect and dignity, as I sought to hold the accountable for their evil deeds, than to accord procedural human dignity to those who committed sex crimes against children.
A closely related aspect of child sex abuse in the Adventist denomination is how it treats adults who-were-abused-as-children when they finally come forward. Oregon is a case in point. Yes, the Conference there is NOW working hard to do things right in this area for children. But it still hides behind lawyers and the adversarial legal system to minimize “doing the right thing” for those adult victims of childhood sexual abuse.
I am not speaking second hand here. And I could name four others.
http://crewjanci.com/seventh-day-adventist-church-under-fire-for-lax-response-to-sex-abuse-allegations/
Gill,
On more than one occasion I have pointed-out to Conference leaders that some kind of support for victims and their families is notably lacking from their efforts. Ditto for an outreach to potential victims to teach them how to respond, and where to go, in the event of inappropriate advances. Their focus is primarily directed towards Conference employees and local church volunteers who work with young people. One Conference leader actually said in response to a question about this lack, that victim support was a matter for the local congregations, not the Conference. Others have chosen not to respond at all on this topic.
In this regard they are following in the lead of the NAD and (presumably the GC) “risk management” lawyers. These legal types are understandably concerned with limiting the liability exposure of the organization to lawsuits by or on behalf of victims. And I suppose a case could be made by the legal types, that if the organization starts reaching-out to victims, where do they stop? I am not suggesting that the Conference officials are indifferent or uncaring. I am only saying they are following the lead from “higher-up” on how to address the problem.
“These ought ye to have done, and not left the other undone.”
Gill,
The web site you linked to is an advertisement for legal services. And the incidents it mentions are far away in time or place from where I live today. This gentleman appears to be trolling for potential clients who could be plaintiffs in lawsuits.
I am not saying that legal advice and/or representation are never appropriate. I would strongly suggest that a private attorney is not the first person I would recommend to contact if you are a victim of sexual abuse. In my part of Oregon there are civil authorities (eg child protective services and various law enforcement agencies) who are ready and able to investigate these complaints and take appropriate actions.
Jim,
CrewJanci.com is not “an advertisement for legal services” any more than Atoday.org is an advertisement for editorial services. The page of their firm’s website that I linked to is informational in nature, very relevant to this article we are commenting on here. The Jamaican case it speaks of is only about a year-and-a-half old.
While the Leslie Bovee case’s victims are now in their 50s, the distance in time does NOT absolve the church of it’s responsibility today to make right what it did back then when Mr. Bovee was made a Pathfinder leader after the church already knew he was a convicted pedophile.
I am pretty sure that the civil authorities you referred to can only address current cases of abuse. Fortunately, Oregon law allows for adults to seek restitution for what happened to them in childhood. But this requires the assistance of a lawyer.
Gill,
“If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual abuse in the Seventh-day Adventist Church and would like to speak with someone confidentially, please call 1-888-407-0224 or email us today.
About Peter Janci
Peter has represented more than one hundred victims of sexual abuse over nearly a decade. ”
Am I the only one who gets the impression that calling or emailing “us”, will get you an offer of legal representation? What is the antecedent of the pronoun “us” other than Mr. Janci’s law firm?
Those “higher-up” know that this issue is systemic http://safeplaceservices.org.au/resources/sps-reports/end-of-year-report-2011-investigations.pdf as this Adventist Risk Management sponsored report shows (Hundreds of cases in a ten year period, 10-15 cases every year). It is the corporate church (denomination that operates like a huge business) calling the shots here, not an entity that responds actively and positively to “As ye have done it unto the least of these.”
Gill,
“Systemic” implies that this happens by (intentional or unintentional) design of the system. I think that is a totally unfair characterization of the SDA church.
Sexual abuse and other forms of abuse are Endemic in society. You have offered no evidence that these are more frequent within the SDA church.
It is certainly true that the SDA church like many other organizations and institutions, has in the past handled these incidents very poorly, and in the present does not always handle themselves as we should. Again, you have offered no evidence that the church has or does handle these situations worse than society in general (eg homes, public schools, public and private employers, other churches, the military, etc).
None of this is intended to deny that we could and should do a better job of handling these situations. But in the part of the world where I live, they are being handled far better now than a generation or two ago. And this comment applies to the SDA church as well as to secular authorities. The report you linked is actually evidence in support of my claim. Two generations ago nobody in the church hierarchy would have compiled this kind of a report. And they probably would have retaliated (actually did in some cases) against anybody who reported such incidents. A generation ago if such a report existed, it would have been a closely guarded secret.
Gill,
“Systemic” implies that this happens by (intentional or unintentional) design of the system. I think that is a totally unfair characterization of the SDA church.
Sexual abuse and other forms of abuse are Endemic in society. You have offered no evidence that these are more frequent within the SDA church.
It is certainly true that the SDA church like many other organizations and institutions, has in the past handled these incidents very poorly, and in the present does not always handle them as we should. Again, you have offered no evidence that the church has or does handle these situations worse than society in general (eg homes, public schools, public and private employers, other churches, the military, etc).
None of this is intended to deny that we could and should do a better job of handling these situations. But in the part of the world where I live, they are being handled far better now than a generation or two ago. And this comment applies to the SDA church as well as to secular authorities. The report you linked is actually evidence in support of my claim. Two generations ago nobody in the church hierarchy would have compiled this kind of a report. And they probably would have retaliated (actually did in some cases) against anybody who reported such incidents. A generation ago if such a report existed, it would have been a closely guarded secret.
Jim, Several definitions of “systemic” explained it as meaning that the entire system has been affected, not just a part of it. No mention of the design of the system in any of those definitions from either the U.S. or Britain. “Systematic” does refer to a carefully planned process. In the case of the RC church the systematic nature of the problem was becoming an issue. Some argued that the system itself perpetuated the abuse, perhaps was even designed to, or ended up, protecting abusers
Anyway, Gill, I get it. Your point is that this is not a problem confined to a particular place in the denomination. It permeates the entire system.
I have met a couple of SDA convicted child molesters. Both experienced violence, as a result of their crime, while in custody. One expressed no remorse for his crime but rather surprise that his daughter reported him. The other was so remorseful that, contrary to legal advice, freely confessed his guilt and received a typical prison sentence.
I know two young men who were raped as children by predatory homosexuals and infected with HIV. One lived in Brentwood, CA, the other in La Canada. On the other end, I observed a group of Black men beating another man in the streets of South Central Los Angeles. Upon inquiry, I learned that he had been “caught’ molesting a child.. From La Canada to Brentwood to ~Compton, that’s systemic.
I confused my sources in the previous post. ARM didn’t sponsor that Safe Places Services report. The numbers I inaccurately recalled above should have been, “In the past two decades (1992-2011), more than 400 claims were made in the United States, involving more than 525 child victims. … ARM routinely handles 15 to 20 reported claims in the U.S. each year.”
The quotation is from http://circle.adventist.org/files/jae/en/jae201375040410.pdf
This happens too often in our churches. Two child molesters were in a small church close to Andrews U. They did not (as far as we know) sexually molest children in the church/school, but they did sexually molest their own children. They were both convicted. The sad part was that the wives knew and did nothing to protect the kids. Shouldn’t they be held responsible as enablers?
Once is too often, Jacky. SDA churches have done a lot in recent years to implement systems to protect children while I’m Sabbath School and on outings. Background checks for volunteers in children’s ministries are now routine.
Of course churches need to do everything they can to support members who are wounded and hurting, regardless of the cause. Usually, though not always, sexual misconduct by church employees comes as a lightning bolt out of a cloudless sky to the employer. The victim who sues the church organization is looking for a deep pocket. In order to hold an employer liable for the actions of its employees, a plaintiff generally has to show that the employer knew or should have known that it’s employee posed risks.
After all, why should an employer be liable for wrongdoing of an employee which is outside the course and scope of employment? And cannot be reasonably foreseen?
Victims involved in litigation against employers generally don’t feel supported by the entity they are suing in court unless the support comes in the form of seven figure settlements. How can the church support a person who it believes is wrongfully accusing them of failing to prevent wrongdoing that may not have been foreseeable? “Feeling supported,” in the context of sexual tort litigation, most often means “You must accept and take responsibility for what I am accusing you of.”
Nathan,
Your words are all too true. We live in a society where everything has a price, and money is the preferred cure for every ill.
From other pages on the web site of Crew Janci LLP:
“Our Approach: Your Healing Is Our Main Concern
Sexual abuse comes in many forms. Each victim has a unique story about what happened and the impact it has had.
At Crew Janci LLP, our attorneys have nearly forty years of combined experience representing hundreds of victims of sexual abuse and other crimes. We are dedicated to empowering victims of sexual violence and other crimes to achieve the healing they need and the justice they deserve.”
(cf http://crewjanci.com/our-approach-your-healing-is-our-main-concern/)
Sound altruistic to you? Read on.
(continued)
(continued)
“Results
The attorneys from Crew Janci LLP are proud to have obtained many significant monetary settlement and awards for many of our clients. These results are important for two reasons. First, they have provided our clients some of the restitution and symbolic justice they deserve for what they have suffered. Second, these results – coupled with non-monetary demands – force institutions to change their policies and practices to better protect the vulnerable. Through these and other results, our clients have helped bring about positive social change for the future.
NOTE: The following is not a complete list of all of the results obtained by the attorneys from Crew Janci LLP. Not all cases result in a positive outcome. Each case is different and the results in any given case are determined by the unique facts and dynamics of that case. Crew Janci LLP cannot guarantee a result in any particular case.”
(cf crewjanci.com/results/)
What follows is a list of judgments in descending order from highest $$ amount.
One wonders what portion of these “Results” ends-up in the pockets pf Crew Janci LLP?
It would appear to me that Crew Janci have found their particular method of “healing” to be fairly lucrative 8-).
Jim,
It appears that my reference to a law firm that serves abuse victims, providing them with some means of compensation for the evils done to them by corporate entities such as the SDA church, Boy Scouts, Catholic church etc., has touched a nerve with you.
Would you have replied similarly had I linked to the website of a hospital that provides–for a fee that generates a tidy profit to the service providers(in many instances)–medical services for victims of sexual abuse?
Do you deny that sexual abuse victims do not need legal assistance? How else can an individual who has been wronged bring an entity with power over that person to justice otherwise?
The law firm and the hospital are equivalent service providers.
We can never know the amount the SdA legal department has paid out to such victims. The lawyers take it off the top and what’s left is a pittance for the victims.
But what recourse should there be? No amount of money can make such a victim “whole again.” Think of the children molested by teachers and especially, over many years, but Catholic priests. Only when it becomes very public, is action taken, too late.
One could say the same for physicians: they make money off the sickness and pain of others.
Do you have any facts, Elaine, for your accusation that lawyers get the lion’s share of payouts, and victims get a pittance? That may happen, but only when there is a nuisance settlement in cases that produce no substantial evidence of vicarious liability on the part of the perpetrator’s employer. in such cases, the expenses of litigation (not lawyer fees) often consume most of the settlement.
In the case of minors, attorney fees are governed by statute. Where liability is found against a defendant with money, victims do not get a mere pittance. They get far more than the attorneys who represent them.
This was a general statement applying to lawsuits in general. Think of the tobacco industry’s lawyers for years. Many similar cases can stretch out for years, all the while eating up any settlements. Victims gets what’s left over AFTER the lawyers.
You are over generalizing from ignorance, Elaine. As a general statement, applying to lawsuits in general, you could not be more wrong. Class action tobacco lawsuits were unique. The finest lawyers in the country took great risks to pursue those cases. With great risks come great rewards. Class action lawsuits in general disproportionately benefit the lawyers. But here we are talking about sex abuse cases. Why would you make an irrelevant and incorrect generalization?
I’m not a defender of plaintiff attorneys, but I will defend the truth. We should be able to agree that sex abuse is terrible, and also agree that while monetary damages, while necessary, are so inadequate as to almost be insulting. But visceral moral outrage and compassion should not comstitute a license to play fast and loose with the truth.
I live in a 3rd world country. A perpetrator like these men would be sent to the bottom of the sea without due process. Hopefully, educators or people in position would think twice or thrice before they commit these heinous crime to vulnerable children.
I am a retired church and public school teacher from Oregon. I have one suggestion that should be implemented by all local conferences. A police background check which includes finger printing, should be required. This should include volunteers, adults who work with kids in Sabbath School, pathfinder leaders, and summer staff camp staff. While it won’t stop all predators, background checks with finger prints will add a layer of protection for the children and youth. It is required for teachers and administrators hired to teach public school. I can just hear teachers, volunteers, Sabbath School, pathfinder, and church administrators cry, “It cost to much money to implement.” How does that complaint measure against exploited children, angry parents, embarrassed administrators, and 5.25 million dollar law suits. Need I say more?
Scott, I think you may be a bit out of touch. Do you know of any Conferences in the NAD that have not implemented such policies?
Nathan I’m not out of touch. Conferences have background checks. I’ve been through one. I’d just like to see finger prints as part of the background check.
It was 1980, a new preacher came to our Academy to do a week of prayer. He talked of his testimony becoming a Christian and doing 10 years in prison. He never mentioned why he had been sent to prison. The following year, he was assigned as youth pastor, under my Dad, the senior pastor. My dad asked the conference at that time, what the new pastor did time for, and the conference administration point blank, sold my dad it was a need to know basis, and that my dad didnt need to know. This youth pastor was newly married with a baby, under a year old.
He picked up a youth class, elementary aged girl, who was walking to school, raped her, and dropped her off at school.
Guess what the new youth pastor had done 10 yrs time for? Rape.
I also know that a long time, primary level sabbath school teacher Molested children. I don’t know if he ever did time. While I was doing a college research project in that Ss class, I observed odd behavior, and discussed it with a church elder, and Pastor. The problem was that the odd behavior didn’t actually constitute crossing the inappropriate realm, and couldn’t be acted on for merely being odd, and affectionate, and paternal. I only found later, of the more inappropriate behavior. Is there now protocol established for how to conduct meetings, gatherings, and outings, to help protect both children, AND the teaching,preaching, youth leadership staff?
Unfortunately, the Conference by its silence, basically returned this man right back to the point of his greatest temptation. We should no more install a convicted sex offender in a position of trust over vulnerable young people than we should install a convicted embezzler as a bank teller or church or school treasurer, or a “recovered” alcoholic as a bar-tender.
This seems obvious to us, but unfortunately for many years it was not obvious to the people making these staffing decisions.
Becky,
There are now in North America, protocols in-place for background checks for anyone (employee or volunteer) who works with young people. There are also strong recommendations/requirements relating to either having an “open door” policy in classes or windows in classroom doors, and multiple adults being present in situations where the foregoing is not practical. Ditto for screening drivers on outings, field trips, etc. Basically the goal is to minimize or eliminate situations where the adult is one-on-one with a child.
But these cannot absolutely eliminate any opportunities for mischief. And the latest irony is that because of recent episodes of school shootings, etc, some schools are now covering classroom doors as a security measure.
Bottom line – one cannot eliminate all threats in this world. And sometimes things done in reaction to one threat, create greater opportunities for other forms of offense.
Conviction wrote: “there is no way to anticipate; our only hope is to create strong children, teach them what to look out for and to scream.”
This reflects dangerous misunderstandings about sexual abuse and its prevention.
There are many resources for educating oneself on the issue. For example:
http://religionnews.com/2014/04/26/sex-offenders/
http://www.christianitytoday.com/pastors/2015/january-online-only/groomed-for-abuse.html
We would hold the spouse accountable for not reporting.
Lots of people, with lots of individual ideas, helping no one.
We try the ideas, but the problem persists and continues to grow. None of those making suggestions are there to pick up the pieces or gain wisdom by being involved; but they all continue to have ideas.
Innocent until proven guilty or cast them to the bottom of the sea… quite a range of approaches in the comments.
We can do our best to reduce sin against our children. Even Heaven with perfect everything endured the choice of Lucifer, now the force behind all sin.
Our anger toward sinners against children springs from our personal sense of loss of control or feelings of inadequacy to protect and defend ourselves and children. We live in a sin ridden world! So sad. Only a long term solution—Jesus.
CAREFUL THOUGH. Not all accusations by youth are correct at all or even to any degree. There are cases where youth have accused teachers wrongly and only years later after the teacher has been drug threw the dirt and turned their back on the church has the youth owned up to the fabrication!
There is no quick or easy fix. We must do all the good things we can to prevent such evil and realize it will never be enough.
The saddest news in all these increasing instances across the board in Christianity – where is the power of the gospel? Who are these fakers that they cannot be disicerned by the born agains? Surely they leave strong clues strewn about their sorrid journey to hell. As Adventists, lets keep our eyes open, hire more female teachers obviously out of necessity, and report to civil authorities just as we would a Muslim dropping off a napsack in a bus depot.
Mr. Allison’s past history should come out at the hearing in September . We do know that when his wife was told, according to a well respected former educational official from the Oregon Conference that now lives in Sequim, she was devastated which gives us an indication that she never knew of any past goings on!
These problems can be avoided in the future if the schools have as a rule that no teacher could be alone with a student. Close door meetings should not happen either. That was my own rule when I was an academy teacher. That rule protects the student from abuse and protects the teacher from false accusations. Sometimes the real abuser forces the victim to accuse someone else. I know about two cases when that happened.
That’s a great suggestion! Many teachers take advantage of girls simply by flirtation and unduly personal, invasive conversations. There may never be physical contact, but it is still
inappropriate. My wife, who was an academy vice principal for many years saw it happen a lot. Your suggestion would help to maintain good boundaries and prevent inappropriate attempts at emotional intimacy that would never be actionable wrongdoing in and of themselves. Abuse can take many forms.
The idea of requiring that no teacher is ever alone with a student has a lot of merit. It means that students need to be informed of the rule and reminded of the rule periodically, perhaps with signs posted clearly around the school.
Hiring only female teachers is not a solution. Female teachers can be sexual abusers as well.
We can do our best and rely on His grace to carry all of us through such difficult situations. Justice will be done in ALL cases. We may have to wait for the Lord’s return but, justice will be done. NOTHING is done in secret.
Time for all to repent of sinful, actions and thoughts and ask the Lord to make ME over anew today.
Allen, The things you have said are already common practice in some areas of the USA. No social media contact, no contact outside of the classroom. It’s not only to protect the “children.” Teachers want to protect themselves from suspicion, predatory students, nutty parents. It’s fairly simple, as I sometimes explained to my students of high school and college age. “I’m not your friend, I’m your teacher. I’m not interested in the problems you have with your boyfriend, etc.”
I agree Allen. From experience; the last two cases (civil not church) involved female teachers and the one before that was a mother inviting someone in for her daughter. A lot of bad on the other side of the coin also.
I think we are going to have to go back to the BIBLE and family (now the National effort) and fix the root problem. Nothing else seems to help; maybe because we dug the hole.
We are going to have to start teaching in Titus 2 again. A well structured child will not do these things nor allow it to be done of or to others. We are also going to have to start holding the accountabilities and responsibilities with and to us; where it is really always resided and actually note the failures.
In spreading HIS Word, protecting our flock, creating the strong beacon and in Loving others (which are our commands to start with); maybe we should drop the little individual pursuits? To allow focus on the priorities? So that we might actually have something left to have focus and priority on?
In most cases, if not in all cases, always believe the one who has been abused. We live in a sin sick world, and we cannot allow our children to be ruined for life by sick sick teachers and pastors. Parents and those “in charge” should report AT ONCE that the abuse has taken place, even if it means family of the abuser is hurt….the child is of the utmost importance, even if both agree “to do it” the adult must be held responsible.
In most cases, if not in all cases, always believe the one who has been abused.
What about the innocense of people who are falsely accused. It seems like too often in cases where someone cries “sexual abuse” the accused is believed to be automatically guilty until proven innocent. I believe in protecting children from sexual preditors, but I know of a few situations where divorce custody cases where there were accuasations of sexual abuse to obtain full custody and seek revenge on the accused parent.
Also there is this perceived notion in the minds of some religious people that if you are gay you are automatically a pedophile, which isn’t true. Nonty five percent of pedophiles are shown to be heterosexual.