11: Definitions - Defining the IFB and Defining Different forms of Abuse

This is the For Freedom Podcast. This podcast exists to bring to light the legalism and abuse in the independent fundamental Baptist movement and to encourage believers to grow in grace through the scriptures. Now, here's your host, John Hollifield. And welcome, everybody, to the For Freedom Podcast. I am your host, John Hollifield, and I hope this week finds everybody doing well. I am definitely doing well and had a good week so far this week. Our kids, my wife, homeschools our children. So they started homeschooling this week, and so that was an adventure the first day. And they're enjoying that and just keeping up with things going on there. If you listened to the last episode of the podcast, I had stated that I was going to be going into sort of a series on abuse and just sort of doing some episodes on the nature of abuse and that kind of thing. So we did an interview with Joy Forrest on domestic abuse and the pulpit. And so this episode, I'm going to continue that sort of theme. What I want to do, though, I'm going to talk about definitions. And I've had some questions and had some interaction with some people. So I wanted to start off this episode by giving my definition of the IFB. So I think a lot of people will try to discredit or say things that, you know, you don't know what you're talking about. You're broad-brushing everybody who's independent Baptist. And they say, well, it's just the crazies that are out there that are like that. And I think that what you're misunderstanding is that I actually define the independent fundamental Baptist that we're talking about by actual criteria. It's not just their disposition. It's not just the way that they come across. It's not just that they're being a jerk in the pulpit or they're saying stupid things in the pulpit. But it's a whole bunch of other things. Now, first of all, you have to understand that the independent fundamental Baptists define themselves as independent, fundamental, and Baptist. And so independent would be that they are not lined up with any type of denomination or association. Therefore, they're independent local churches that are not associated or part of an association or part of an organization. In fact, I'm going to be referencing this when I talk about the Baptist successionism. But when I went to college, I had a book. And that book was the Collegiate Baptist History Workbook. This was written by a guy who's known in the independent fundamental Baptist world for his work on Baptist history. And in this book, he talks about Baptist distinctives. And his list of Baptist distinctives is independent churches and independent churches. And so he talks about these churches being autonomous, independent. I'm not against that necessarily. I do sort of dislike—this is just my opinion—I don't care for the term independent. I think that it gives the connotation of an island almost. I think churches should be autonomous. I think the proper word, the better word, is autonomous. Autonomous, not linking up, not beholden to a governing body or something like that. And I think that that's the better word, you're autonomous. But I think independent gives the connotation that you're an island. And I don't think any church should be an island. I think churches definitely should be working together with each other. And so independent, fundamental. Now, when this started off as we covered the history, fundamental meant the fundamentals of the faith, the fundamentals of the Christian faith, the fundamental doctrines. But over time, those fundamentals have grown. Those fundamentals have expanded to many other things. And so I'm going to talk about that in just a second. But here's a clip of what fundamental sort of encompasses nowadays. Yes. But, you know, there's something like that, Lord, who can't split it, I can't, if I'm going to say, but you separate, you can't get it. I don't think that you're going to put it down. It's a great way to put it down. I'm pretty generous. I'm not. Baptist church. You're going to get away from the students. Or I'm not. It's a counselor. I want to make it. If I'm going to Baptist church, I want to speak from another point. Now, I am on another planet. That can tell you, that's true. I really do. I get to meet people. And then the other one is Baptist. And Baptist, Baptist historically, you know, carries with it the Baptist distinctives. And those Baptist distinctives are outlined greatly through the podcast of Matthew Lyon, the History and Hope podcast, who's been going through those Baptist distinctives one by one. And I think what's interesting, too, is the way those Baptist distinctives have been defined by the Baptist church actually reveals that most independent fundamental Baptists are not very Baptist. And so here's how I define an independent fundamental Baptist. Okay. Independent fundamental Baptists, along with those things that we said, they claim independence from any denomination or association. We said that. Number two, they claim to be Baptistic in doctrine. We said that. Number three, practices and enforces, whether through preaching or not. Some of these, they may not preach it from the pulpit, but it's the culture of the church, and you know that that's the way you're supposed to be. They practice or enforce extra biblical standards upon those within their church or sphere of influence. And this is where we're talking about legalism. And this is when I speak of an independent fundamental Baptist, I'm talking about this. And I think this characterizes the movement, characterizes many of these churches. Number four, practices and believes in a pastoral authority form of church government. Elders or deacons may be present, but operates in a function to follow, obey, and lift up the senior pastor. Obey God instantly! And what you can do when you obey God, you'll overcome. Satan's out there trying to defeat us. But God will bless people who obey Him and obey Him instantly. Number two, Abraham not only obeyed instantly, he obeyed without argument. Why is it that some of God's people have to argue about everything they do? Well, I don't know whether I'll agree with Dr. Robertson or not. And they'll go to somebody else, go home to their wives and say, do you agree with him what he said? I want to disobey. I want to argue. Argue. Hey, this church has one pastor. You obey your pastor. Obey your pastor. Obey him without argument. Number three, cheerfully. Obedience ought to be cheerfully. So I don't like that. It's called biblical authority. So they paint the man as a jerk. You see how I said that, you know. There's some of you who say, that's a jerk way of saying it. Yeah, you didn't like it, did you? That's because you don't like authority. Those that criticize this kind of preaching, they don't like authority! Amen. Amen. That's why they criticize the old-time preachers like Dr. Hiles. Because he preached with authority. So they attack his, well, you know, topical preacher. You know what? Shut up. Yeah. They don't like authority. They don't like someone like a Bob Gray who get up and just, the old Bob Gray. When he pastored, hog killing revival. Y'all ever heard that? Man, that sermon, I cut my teeth on that. Good night. Grew big buck teeth. You know, but I'm telling you, I loved it. And that is characteristic of an independent, that's the belief system of an independent fundamental Baptist church. They may not be railing from the pulpit that I'm the head honcho and you better do what I say. But in the leadership meetings and the way the church is run, this guy is basically the dictator of the church. Number five. Practices and enforces, whether in public preaching or not, the exclusive use of the King James Version of the Bible. Any other translation, including the New King James Version, is considered anywhere from not accurate to perversions of Satan. 1 Corinthians 16. As he comes down to the end of this particular book, he says, verse number 13, watch you stand fast. What? Amen. Right here in this thing right here. Hold on to it. Don't abandon it. You know what's happening today? It's hard for me to believe, but I don't go on the internet a lot. I mean, I do some study and I do some this and that. But I don't watch a lot of other preachers. I don't like to, I just don't. But you know what's going on with guys that were fundamental Bible believing? They're going in apostasy. I mean, they're getting, they're going into getting even other versions other than this. Guys that said they believed the King James Version. They're going to this, what's this called? What's the new one called? It's the ESV. That's a popular version. I found that. I found that out the other day. I mean, guys, if you, men that maybe some of you know, but you wouldn't have ever thought and they went to some Bible colleges that, you know, believed it or said they did. I'm not a TR man. I'm not TR and King James. I'm King James it. And when you go that TR and take, you know, both, you know, you have two, then you have two authorities and they conflict. I mean, you'll have a Greek and I don't know Greek. Danny could get up here and probably, probably teach you. He took Greek, but he probably flunked it a couple of times. I don't know. But I know guys that could do that and tell you about that, but we're contradicting. You got the same verse and a word and the Greek will say one thing and the English will say another. What are you going to do? What's right? They can't both be right. The word apostasy means an abandonment of a former loyalty. Passing your seatbelt. Every time a fundamental church goes to a different so-called Bible, throws the hymns out, turns the auditorium into a nightclub appearance and the preaching starts to sound exactly like that, which is appreciated by compromisers and capitulators. I want you to know that pervasive apostasy has just taken up its membership in that former house of God. You say, preacher, are you talking about the liberal church that I left to join the Calvary Baptist Church? Well, Cinderella, if the slipper fits, put it on. You and I ought to be homesick for heaven because of the pervasive apostasy. Well, there's not a week that goes by in my life. Your pastor travels and preaches out. There's not a week that goes by in his life. But what the news, sad news, hits our ears of some preacher or some church that has lost Dr. Hayslip, their ever-loving mind and have turned the house of God into a coffee shop. Somebody help me preach. Have turned the house of God into a nightclub. Have turned the house of God into a playground. God help. And friend, that ought not to make us depressed. That ought to make us delighted. Because it only means that when we get to heaven, why churches don't go liberal in heaven. Preachers don't go liberal in heaven. I mean, I'll tell you what. It's the same thing in heaven as it always has been. And you and I ought to be homesick for heaven because of the pervasive apostasy. This King James only-ism is a very errant form of doctrine. And the problem, I think, with a lot of independent fundamental Baptists is they don't quite realize how bad that doctrine is. And it just shows that the lack of understanding and lack of research is study into a topic that should be first and foremost, and that is the Bible. And whenever you say, well, I have researched, I have studied, and I'm King James only, that shows me that your research is dishonest. And you say that's a bold claim. It is a bold claim. But when we get to the episodes on the King James only-ism, I'm going to show you the proof to that claim. Number six, a refusal to associate, fellowship, or learn from any believer, pastor, or denomination that does not hold the points one through five. If they're not King James only, we can't have anything to do with them. Here's an interesting thing. If you don't want to be characterized by an independent fundamental Baptist, what if somebody was going to preach in your church and not use the King James Version of the Bible? Can you give a biblical reason why that is such a big deal to you? I mean, all of these things, what about having somebody come preach at your church that's not a Baptist? They may be preaching on not necessarily a Baptist distinctive, but having somebody come preach at your church that's not a Baptist. I mean, a lot of these things really reveal what the independent fundamental Baptists are. And that's where I am when I define an independent fundamental Baptist. There's actually criteria. It's not just a disposition. There are some that, in their disposition, do come across like jerks. They do come across very hateful. But there's some that come across like they're as loving and as balanced as can be, but in their practice and private and the way that they run their ministry, are independent fundamental Baptists to the core. And so, starting off with that definition of independent fundamental Baptist, now what I want to do for the rest of the episode today is talk about defining abuse. So, we talked last time about, in the last episode, I talked about with Joy Forrest about domestic abuse and had her define domestic abuse. So, with the next couple of episodes, I want to get into giving help from the Scriptures from abuse and talking about different things that relate to abuse. But before we do that, I want to take some time and define what abuse is. And so, I think it would be helpful for, especially those if you're listening to this podcast and you do anything in regards to ministry, I think this would be very, very helpful. Okay, so while Dale Johnson, who is one of the leaders of the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors, the ACBC, said, While the devastating effects of sexual abuse are difficult to grasp for any victim, it is even more difficult to imagine the betrayal and pain of someone who has been sexually victimized within the walls of the church. And that's sort of the characters, one of the goals of the podcast is to expose that abuse within the church and correct the handling of that abuse within the church. And, you know, I've told my story before, but my own brother committed sexual abuse and gross sexual sin and statutory rape towards a girl within the walls of the church. And so, I understand the devastating effects of that kind of sin and that kind of wickedness. A biblical definition of abuse, Greg Gifford says, A biblical definition of abuse helps us to understand the heinous nature of what we're talking about. As sometimes we are speaking of different categories of abuse in their entirety, a biblical definition of abuse also provides a framework to help us understand how to respond to abuse and those facing such wrongs. Greg Gifford teaches at the Masters University in their counseling department. He's also a certified biblical counselor. And so, that's what I want to do. I'm trying to encompass this with the scriptures, with the sufficiency of the Word of God. So, one of the goals I want to do as we go through and define these things is to use the Word of God in helping us make those definitions. Abuse, let me say this at the get-go, Abuse rarely comes in one form. Abuse rarely comes in one form. If someone is being abused, you can probably marker down that they're being abused in another area as well once you figure that out. One resource that I'm getting some of my information from that I want to recommend to you is, and I'll put the link to this in the show notes, is the Child Safeguarding Policy Guide by Boz Chavijian, another author. And this really does a great job. It's a great resource for the church on setting up, but it also does a great job of defining abuse so you know how to react to it when it happens. Listen to some of this. 66% of maltreated or abused children are abused in at least two ways. 30% are abused in at least five ways, and 10% endure 11 or more types of abuse. One study found that children who had been physically assaulted in the past year were five times as likely to be sexually assaulted that same year. So get this. Now listen to this. This is key. Thinking that way, understanding abuse rarely comes in one form. When your church protects a child from sexual abuse, they are often protecting the child from additional forms of maltreatment or abuse, such as physical abuse or neglect. But let me reverse that. When your church neglects to take care of an abuse victim, or when your church protects an abuser, then you then become a facilitator of the next victim that that abuser will abuse, and those abuse victims will continue to be abused in more than one way. is the most likely way that that will turn out. So, abuse is seen in the Bible. Let's talk about the abuse in the Bible. Abuse is seen in the Bible in places where being under the misused power of another person or group of people. This is what we often call power dynamics. We see this in the Bible, Genesis 16, 6. But Abram said to Sarai, Behold, your servant is in your power. Do to her as you please. Then Sarah dealt harshly with her, and she fled from her. This is the dynamic between Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar. And after Hagar had a child with Abraham, and it was Sarah's idea, Sarah became bitter and angry towards her servant or her slave, Hagar. And Abraham said, Do whatever you want with her. And she was abusive towards her slave. And because she was in the position of authority, she was in the position of power, she used her power to abuse her slave. And we see this happen. 1 Samuel 2, 16. And if the man said to him, Let them burn the fat first and then take as much as you wish, he would say, No, you must give it now, and if not, I will take it by force. Thus, the sin of the young men was very great in the sight of the Lord, for the men treated the offering of the Lord with contempt. So here you have these people taking what they wanted by force in the use of their power. Ezra 5, 12. But because our fathers had angered the God of heaven, he gave them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, the Chaldean, who destroyed his house and carried away the people of Babylonia. And so in that passage, you see the power dynamic of an authority in a nation abusing people by conquering them with war. And then, as you know, the story of Nebuchadnezzar and the nation of Israel, after they conquered them, that nation, that government, was abusive to its citizens. When we speak of being under the misused authority of another, we often speak of someone controlling or being controlling. And that's something I think that we probably should meditate on, especially when it comes to the church culture. So let's define this. First of all, let's look at sexual abuse. Sexual abuse. So from the Church Safety Policy Guide by Baz Javidjian, any occurrence in which an adult engages in a minor and a sexual activity is abusive. Contact behavior. I'm going to read some of these things. And just a trigger warning, if this is going to be too much for you, you may want to take a break or come back or skip this section. But I'm going to talk just some definitions here of what this involves. Touching with any part of one's body, another's genitalia, butt, express, or surrounding areas. Accept as necessary for caregiving or medical purposes. Using one's own genitalia, butt, express, or surrounding areas to touch another's body. Exploiting a child by engaging the child in prostitution, production of pornography. We could say this not just with children, but also with other people as someone is trying to exert their power over someone else. Non-contact behavior with sexual abuse, sexual communication, whether verbal or written, including by telephone, text message, email, or social media. Voyeurism. Spying on someone. Exposure to pornography. Exhibitionism. Exposure to, of part or all of a child's naked body. Any activity intended to abuse, degrade, arouse, or gratify sexual desires. And again, we could say this to anybody. If somebody is using their, their position of power over someone to exploit them in these areas, that is sexual abuse. Denial of abuse is one of the primary impediments toward its prevention. On both ends. On both ends. Many times the victims feel so damaged and feel so ashamed for what they went through, they often go into a denial state. 67% of all sexual abuse reported to law enforcement in the United States each year is perpetrated against children. The ACE study estimated that approximately one in four women and one in six men were sexually abused before the age of 18. What about the biblical category? Do we have a biblical example of sexual abuse? I think we do. We have it in the story of David's children. You have Amnon who raped his sister Tamar and caused major issues within that family and Tamar was not handled very well. Forget the idea of going after David doing what he was supposed to do to Amnon. David did a terrible job with handling his own daughter through this situation. And so we see the devastation and sad effects of sexual abuse in the Amnon Tamar story. So that's sexual abuse. Now let's move on to physical abuse. Defining physical abuse. In Boz's book, Physical Abuse, although definitions vary, generally a physical assault involves conduct intended to cause physical pain or injury. Pastors must challenge people who excuse any form of abusive behavior with justifications from the Bible, Boz Javidjian says. In one study, more than 1.25 million children were found to have been maltreated or abused in the U.S. alone in one year. Of those who have been abused, most had been abused physically. What about what the Bible talks about physical abuse? Physical abuse involves physical violence, Acts 16, 19. But when her owners saw that their hope of gain was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the rulers. Now here in this situation, Paul and Silas were not being beaten because of what they preached. They were being beaten because these men saw that the change in the lady that had accepted the gospel was no longer providing them the source of revenue that they had before. And so for that anger, they lashed out against Paul and Silas and abused them, physically abused them for that. There's threats of physical violence. Ephesians 6, 9. Masters, do the same to them and stop your threatening knowing that he who is both their master and yours is in heaven and there is no partiality with them. Ephesians 6, and that part of Ephesians 6 is talking about the relationship between slaves and their masters. and basically saying don't threaten your slaves with physical violence and prohibiting them from doing that. And I think that we could apply that prohibition to all relationships. We should not threaten physical violence. That is an aspect of physical abuse. Now, emotional abuse. Now, people will say, yes, we're against sexual abuse. Yes, we're against physical abuse. And those types of abuse are wicked. But sadly, and in the church, emotional abuse and spiritual abuse, the next two categories we're going to define, are either denied, ignored, or swept under the rug worse than the other two. And so let's look at emotional abuse. Boz says in the Safeguarding Policy book, suffering from emotional abuse or psychological abuse, people that suffer from emotional or psychological abuse when they are repeatedly ridiculed, blamed, humiliated, or compared unfavorably to others. Let me read that again. Children or others suffer from emotional or psychological abuse when they are repeatedly ridiculed, blamed, humiliated, or compared unfavorably to others. You want to talk about emotional abuse. You want to talk about whether preachers commit emotional abuse on their members, on their staff members, on the way that they treat them. Are they treating them like this? One child abuse prevention guide defines emotional abuse as derogatory name-calling and put-downs or persistent and deliberate coldness from a person. To the extent where the behavior of the victim or the child is disturbed or their emotional development is at serious risk of being impaired. What does the Bible say about this? Well, the Bible talks about reviling in Luke 6, 28. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who abuse you. Here, cursing is tied to abuse in Luke 6, 28. And it gives us how we should react to it, how we as believers should handle that if that's the way we're going. But it doesn't negate the fact that that is abuse that's being put on a person. 1 Peter 2, 23. When he was reviled, talking of Jesus, he did not revile in return. When he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to those, to who judges justly. Speaking evil of is a form of emotional or psychological psychological or verbal abuse. James 4, 11. Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law, but a judge. I wonder how many preachers would be guilty of this type of abuse from the pulpit alone. And I say this with a little bit of fear and trepidation on my part. Am I guilty of this? But I wonder how many preachers would even see that that's even a problem or that they think that they should even change the way that they behave in the pulpit and use their tongue. Greg Gifford said again, reviling and speaking evil is understood as to speak in a highly insulting manner, which would often be referred to as verbal abuse in modern context. And then lastly, I want to look at spiritual abuse. And this one is ridiculed even, much less ignored or denied. It's even ridiculed. Spiritual abuse, there's no such thing. Spiritual abuse. Bostovigian says in their, in the safe, children's safety policy guide, according to dozens of studies involving more than 19,000 abused children, a large number of maltreated children have not only been injured physically and emotionally, but also spiritually. Spiritual abuse may include misuse of religion for selfish, secular, or ideological ends. Let me say that again. Spiritual abuse may include misuse of religion for selfish, secular, or ideological ends. Spiritual abuse can occur when a perpetrator incorporates religion into the abuse of a child or someone else. Examples of spiritual abuse include the use of religious ideology, precepts, tradition, or sacred text to harm a child. Compelling a child or someone to engage in religious acts against his or her will. Abuse that occurs in a religious context. Abuse perpetrated by a religious leader. Invocation of divine authority to manipulate a child into meeting the needs of the abuser. Listen, using the pulpit or using the position of the pastor or some church staff member to get across your opinions, your way of wanting to do things, your authority, your rule, and using and twisting and manipulating scripture to make that happen is spiritual abuse. And if you've been in a church that's been that, you have been spiritually abused and you need to come out of that. Listen to this quote. In one case, a youth pastor who sexually abused a teenage girl in the church would do so in the church sanctuary. In her memoir, the girl explained that her abuser told her the love we shared was sacred and so the sanctuary was the perfect place. The youth pastor also told her that the sexual abuse he perpetrated on her was God's will. Messaging of this nature can be profoundly and spiritually damaging. I mean, Eric Skorzynski just had a guest on his podcast, on the Preacher Voice podcast, and she explained that because of the nature of her sexual abuse and rape by her youth pastor. Certain hymns and the fact that when somebody says the Bible says she just still to this day cannot handle and cringes because of what it brings back, you see the damage that that kind of abuse can do to someone. And how can we sit there and not cry this out in the streets and call for justice? People that go through this are often angry with God, they develop a fear of dying, leave their houses of worship, and in some instances abandon their faith tradition altogether. This same research, though, finds that when faith communities assist children in healing from spiritual injuries, these children also do a better job of coping emotionally and spiritually. I wonder what would happen to some of these victims had some of these pastors stood up and condemned this action, rebuke an elder in public, the Bible says, and been there for the victim. Listen, I strongly disagree with some of the positions that Stacey Shiflett said, but I'm telling you, the way he handled Sarah Jackson's sexual abuse was fantastic because it put the abuser in the light the abuser needed to be, and it put the victim or the survivor in the place she needed to be. And we need to understand these definitions. We need to know these definitions. What is the conclusion? I'll take a quote again from Dale Johnson. Dale Johnson said, we may never be able to completely eradicate the perverseness of sexual abuse from among us. But what we can do, what we should do, what we must do, is eradicate our neglect to do what is right when we are made aware of such evil. Yes! Yes! Yes! How is this not a no-brainer? Yes! Yes! Yes! But because of sinful pride and the wicked hearts of some people that place themselves in the pulpits of churches, this tends to be the rare, the rarity instead of the norm within the church. That is the definition of abuse. I know that wasn't as long of an episode as we've been doing, but those are the definitions of abuse, and we're going to continue on with a couple of episodes, and then we're going to go into some legalism and breaking some of those things down within the Independent Fundamental Baptist Church. I hope some of these things helped you. I hope you continue to listen. I'm going to try to have on some guests that I know will greatly help you from the scriptures. followers. I appreciate listening to the podcast. I appreciate all the ratings and reviews. If you haven't rated it and your platform is Apple Podcasts, please do me a favor. Go on there, give it a rating, maybe give it a review if you have a minute. Share the podcast if you like it. If you enjoyed an episode, help me out there, share that. We're going to try to get the message out. You can follow it on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Until next time, guys, to God, not the pastor, be the glory. God bless you. God bless you.

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