Survivor Advocate Objects to Rebaptism of Samuel Pipim
By AT News Team, September 7, 2014
A professional counselor who serves as an advocate for victims of clergy abuse with The Hope for Survivors, an Adventist organization, has released a statement detailing why Dr. Samuel Pipim was not properly eligible for rebaptism. She was assigned by the organization to work with one of at least three young women that Pipim has victimized to facilitate healing and speak on the victim’s behalf.
The statement details Pipim’s victimization of a young woman who has been give the name “Nandipa” in 2011. It states that officials of the Seventh-day Adventist denomination in Botswana, where the incident happened, have accepted Nandipa’s allegations as accurate because of a recorded telephone conversation in which Pipim admitted his misbehavior.
The statement was released in response to a news story in Adventist Today earlier this year which reported that an Adventist church in Columbus, Ohio, permitted a visiting minister to rebaptize Pipim while their pastor was out of the country on a mission trip. Adventist Today has received many comments on this event.
“My opposition to [his] rebaptism has nothing to do with being judgmental or unforgiving or want to ‘cast the first stone,'” stated Jennifer Jill Schwirzer, a licensed family counselor in Pennsylvania and well-known Adventist writer, speaker and seminar leader. It has “everything to do with wanting to protect the integrity and reputation of my church, and protect the purity of young women the world over.”
The statement points out that the Ann Arbor, Michigan, Seventh-day Adventist Church, where Pipim was disfellowshipped, and the denomination’s Michigan Conference which withdrew his credentials as an ordained ministry, have not changed their view of Pipim’s status. They did not approve of his rebaptism and evidently agree that he was not eligible for rebaptism.
The statement quotes Ellen G. White, a cofounder of the denomination, that “true confession is always of a specific character and acknowledges particular sins.” (Steps to Christ, page 38) “From what I know, Samuel Pipim has never engaged in this work of specific confession. [And] beyond the confession he owes to the victims … he owes to his followers an admission that he has fabricated a much more flattering picture of himself than was true.” Pipim continues to operate an independent ministry, publishing books and other materials on spiritual and theological topics, and continues to be referred to by some Adventists as a source of Bible truth.
Adventist Today has published the entire statement here:
https://www.atodayarchive.org/article/2680/news/editorial/statement-regarding-the-rebaptism-of-samuel-pipim
I affirm Jennifer Jill Schwirzer in her raising questions about Samuel Pipim’s rebaptism. His forgiveness and salvation are in the hands of his Lord, not the church; but his serial offenses toward God’s vulnerable children are public record and must be taken into account by Christ’s body of believers relative to church discipline and membership.
From my experience as an ordained minister/pastor, I came to be careful (suspicious) of seemingly sincere Adventists who made it their duty to try to purify the church of sin through condemnation of supposed errant individuals and repeated public calls for discipline of such ones. They seemed unusually aware of the lifestyles of the members under their specific watchfulness and were ready to point them out in many venues. Time and circumstance repeatedly has revealed that many such individuals were creating a smoke screen of sanctity to cover their own sins and lack of progress in receiving the specific life-changing power of Christ our Righteousness.
The ministry of Samuel Pipim before his grossly inappropriate/damaging behaviors became public was already suspect in my mind. Reading his literature with its strident tenor and specific thrusts against sin and sinners in the church raised red flags years before 2010.
Let him live out his life in humble acceptance of the discipline of his church. He should NEVER be ordained/credentialed again, nor be given leadership positions. He is apparently a perpetrator and should be treated as such–with compassion–but with resolve to do our best to make our churches and ministries safe for all. Transgression in matters of this kind comes with a very high price.
I can’t agree more with Jennifer’s assessment of Pipim. This has been a complete tragedy and his rebaptism makes it more of a tragedy.