2: Abuse within the IFB

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 Holyfield. Hello and welcome everybody to the For Freedom Podcast. I'm your host, John Holyfield, and it's good to have you back. This is episode number two, and in this episode, as I said earlier, these are some introductory episodes that we're doing to outline For Freedom is exist to expose legalism and help those that have been abused within those churches by extending grace through the exposing of and expounding of the scriptures. Now, the last episode, we talked about what is legalism, and in this episode, we're going to take the second part of what the podcast is going to be about and talk about abuse. I do want to give a little bit of a content warning or trigger warning. If you have little ones around, this probably is not the episode to listen to around them. There's going to be explicit content. Again, I'm going to be reading, and I'll explain why, an article by Sarah Smith that was from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in 2018. And in some of these stories, there is some explicit content. So I just want to warn you about that, if that's going to be even tough for you to listen to. If you want to skip this episode, I understand that. But the idea is we're outlining abuse within the IFB movement. The foster family that I went to live with, the husband and the wife were both Hal Zanderson faculty members. They had four children of their own. I moved in with them in March of 78. And before the end of that year, I was being sexually molested by the father. They told me my looks were to blame. Now, I'm not no supermodel. Yeah, I did pageants, and I went on to do a few things. But people have no idea how hard it is when people blame you for the atrocities that happened to you. And it was how I dressed as a 14-year-old girl. I already had my skirts down past my knee. I already had everything all covered up. And this man did those things anyway. So for Mr. Vineyard to talk about how I was unclean and nobody would ever want to be, do you know how that stayed in my head? My earliest memory of being molested was when I was four years old. It was Sunday school in Milwaukee, Illinois. And the preacher's son ran the class with his wife. And he came in to take me to the bathroom. Usually, I went with my bathroom buddy. And that day, he took me in separately. Of course, my friend started crying. I was scared. After we left the bathroom that day, I felt violated and dirty. From day one that I was adopted, I started being groomed for molestation. My dad quickly was able to get me to a position where I was willing. I was just five years old looking for somebody to love me and not throw me out. I was taken under his wing like a father figure. And then, like the father and daughter dates turned into make-out sessions. And when I questioned him and said, I don't know how you feel about me, I'm confused. He would get mad at me for questioning him and make me feel really terrible that I dare to question his motives or his intent. So, each time it got worse, it would feel like that again. And he would, after the first time he had sex with me, I said, I didn't want you to do that. And he was like, oh, well, are you going to let any man do that to you? I finally got up enough courage to tell my principal what was going on. He was also the pastor of the church. I wanted it to stop. I just wanted to be a normal teenager. When I went to talk to him, I started off by telling him that I had been in a sexual relationship with someone and he immediately stopped me. He told me not to say his name until I was absolutely sure I wanted something to be done about it. He told me that if I told him his name, he was legally responsible and had to report it. He then told me that if I come forward, I would ruin this man's life and ask if I wanted to be the one responsible for that. Of course, I didn't. I thought I loved this man. By the end of the meeting, I had talked myself out of it. But my principal told me that since he knew I had been in a sexual relationship, that I had to tell my grandparents and that I would be punished for it at school as well. I had multiple extraordinary experiences in this IFB church community. From experiencing an exorcism when I was an infant because they believed my crying was a sign that I was possessed by a devil. From going through an intense will-breaking session with my grandfather because I was rebellious as a four-year-old where I was locked in a room for hours with him until I learned to submit. One of its biggest problems, I think, is its leadership because you can't question your leaders. And when you can't question your leaders, we've seen it in politics, you know what happens. It's like a moth to a flame, these guys. I don't know how they do it, but that is their personality. People were just drawn to them and they had this weird power over people. And people loved them. And I don't even know how to explain that phenomenon. I really don't. When I got involved in the IFB school, they talked about rape and how it was the woman's fault. You know, because she was probably wearing pants or eye makeup or, you know, behaving in some sort of provocative way, which brought it on. It was even the girls' fault. Girls. Yeah. They were to blame for their own rape and sexual assault. When everyone heard what happened, I was expelled from school. I was kicked out of the youth group at church. The other kids at school were not allowed to associate with me. I was the victim, but in their eyes, it was all my fault. I did try to tell people at the church. There were five different times that I've tried and even CPS came twice. But I was told that I needed to forgive and forget and that he had repented and his sins were under the blood. And I had to also play the good Christian girl at school in the front row that wanted to learn about God. And at the same time, I was dying inside. In that abuse atmosphere to have, well, my parents' boss cover over basically what happened to me and then by his son. And then to have it happen again years later, done. Just done. I don't want another 30 years to go by. And there's another woman who is saying the same story that I did. Okay. And this article does the best. Now, I know a lot of people have read this article. But I think as far as starting the conversation in this podcast, in the realm of this podcast, it would be appropriate to just read the article. And after I get done reading the article, after that, we are going to, I'm going to talk about a little bit of an experience that I had with my own brother. Towards the end of the podcast. Okay. So, this is the, the name of the article is Hundreds of Sex Abuse Allegations in Fundamental Baptist Churches Across the U.S. It is by Sarah Smith. It was published or put, released on December 9th, 2018 in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. And so, here it is. Joy Evans Ryder was 15 years old when she says her church youth director pinned her to his office floor and raped her. It's okay. It's okay, he told her. You don't have to be afraid of anything. He straddled her with his knees. And she looked off into the corner, crying and thinking, this isn't how my mom said it was supposed to be. The youth director, Dave Hiles, was the son of the charismatic pastor of First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana, considered at the time the flagship for thousands of loosely affiliated, independent, fundamental Baptist churches and universities. At least three other teen girls would accuse Hiles of sexual misconduct, but he never faced charges or even sat for a police interview related to the accusations. When he got in trouble, Hiles was simply able to move on from one church assignment to the next. Hiles' flight to safety has become a well-worn path for ministers in the independent fundamental Baptist movement. For decades, women and children have faced rampant sexual abuse while worshiping at independent fundamental Baptist churches around the country. The network of churches and schools has often covered up the crimes and helped relocate the offenders. An eight-month Star-Telegram investigation is found. More than 200 people, current or former church members across generations, shared their stories of rape, assault, humiliation, and fear in churches where male leadership cannot be questioned. It's a philosophy and it's flawed, said Stacey Shiflett, an independent fundamental Baptist pastor in Dundalk, Maryland. The philosophy is you don't air your dirty laundry in front of everyone. Pastors think if they keep it down low, it won't impact anyone. And then the other philosophy is it's wrong to say anything bad about another preacher. The Star-Telegram discovered at least 412 allegations of sexual misconduct in 187 independent fundamental Baptist churches and their affiliated institutions spanning 40 states and Canada. 21 abuse allegations were uncovered exclusively by the Star-Telegram and others were documented in criminal cases, lawsuits, and news reports. But victims said the number of abuse is far greater because few victims ever come forward. And that's a true fact documented even by the FBI. 168 church leaders were accused or convicted of committing sexual crimes against children. The investigation found, now get this, I have this bold and underlined, At least 45 of the alleged abusers continued in ministry after accusations came to the attention of church authorities or law enforcement. Compounding the problem is the legal statute of limitations. For many alleged offenders, the statutes on the crimes have expired. Many of the allegations involved men whose misconduct has long been suspected in the independent fundamental Baptist community. But most of their victims have not publicly come forward on the record until now. Even pastors have, for the first time in interviews with the Star-Telegram, acknowledged they moved alleged abusers out of their churches rather than call law enforcement. From Connecticut to California, the stories are tragically similar. A music minister molested a 15-year-old girl in North Carolina and moved to another church in Florida. Another girl's parents stood in front of their Connecticut congregation to acknowledge their daughter's sin after she was abused by her youth pastor beginning at 16. This year, four women accused a pastor in California of covering up sexual misconduct and shielding the abusers over almost 25 years. To understand how this systemic, widespread abuse could happen again and again, some former members say it is necessary to understand the cult-like power of many independent fundamental Baptist churches and the constant pressure not to question pastors or ever leave the church. We didn't have a compound like those other places, but it may as well have been, said one former member who says she was abused. She requested anonymity because, like many others, she is still intimidated by the church. Our mind was the compound, she said. And this is the next section of the article titled Men of God. Current and former members say many independent fundamental Baptist churches rule by fear. Pastor Jim Vineyard was an expert in this tactic. Vineyard had a tattoo snaking around his forearm and liked to talk about the days he said he was a Green Beret. Began his preaching career under Dave Hile's father, Jack, in Indiana and left to begin his own church, Windsor Hills Baptist Church in Oklahoma City. Former members in Oklahoma City remember the story about a photo of a dead man Vineyard kept in his desk. It was a favorite of Vineyard's to tell from the pulpit. In one version of the story, the picture was of a man who voted against Vineyard coming into the church to pastor. The man subsequently got into a car crash and broke his neck. Or there was this version. The photo was of the son of a Windsor Hills family who told Vineyard they were going to leave the church. Vineyard warned them. If they did, God would punish them. They left and the son died in the car crash. Defy Jim Vineyard. The message went, and God would punish you. To go against the advice of the pastor of an independent fundamental Baptist church is almost unthinkable. The, quote, man of God, end quote, is chosen by God and is the church's direct link to him. To question the pastor is to question God. I see a culture where pastoral authority is taken to a level that's beyond what the scripture teaches, said Tim Heck, who was a deacon at Faith Baptist Church in Wildermark, California, and whose daughter said she had been abused by the youth pastor there. I think the independent fundamental Baptists have lost their way, he said. Many pastors build authority through fear and interpretation of Bible verses. I would, one thing that I would, I would like to, misinterpretation of Bible verses. Back to the article. Children learn the story of Elisha and the she-bears. As the prophet Elisha walks up the path toward Bethel, a group of children surrounds him and makes fun of his baldness. Two she-bears emerge from the woods and maul 42 of the children. The lesson? Don't challenge the man of God. Unfortunately, and embarrassingly, I must admit that I have preached a message based on that passage. And I preached it with the intention of getting people to, without question, listen to the man of God. Listen to the pastor. It wasn't until I left the IFB movement and was at the church that I am at now, and our pastor was doing a series on the life of Elisha. And he preached that passage. And I was so convicted and just brokenhearted at what I had preached, because that passage, rightly interpreted, is so misused. So misused. Mainly because, and I'm going to make some people mad here, it is very poorly translated in the King James Version of the Bible. The King James Version has a very poor translation of the Hebrew terms that are used to explain that story, and it was not children that were mauled. It's a very interesting passage that needs some background given to it. But the article's right. That's used, and sadly, I used it. Back to the article. Even if they leave, some ex-members wonder for years whether bad events in their lives were caused by an angry God. Jennifer McCune, who came forward this year to allege that Dave Hiles raped her when she was 14 years old in Texas, still wonders 36 years later if God punished her by giving her late husband cancer. Dave Hiles, son of influential pastor Jack Hiles, continued in the ministry after facing sexual abuse allegations at multiple independent fundamental Baptist churches. Other ex-members said they believed that if they disobeyed the pastor or left the church, God would kill them or their loved ones. The authority of the men of God extends far beyond the church. Pastors often have a heavy hand in who church members can date. Pastors are asked by members for their advice on where to vacation or whether to take a new job. When one congregant wanted to buy a new house, he had the pastor drive by first and approve it. Independent fundamental Baptist churches preach separation. Stay separate from the world, separate from non-believers, and separate from Christians who do not believe as they do. That includes Southern Baptists, who are deemed by the strict sect as too liberal. Members instinctively go to the pastor first with problems. Including those of a criminal nature. Any issues, even legal issues, go to the pastor first, not the police, especially about another member of the church, said Josh Elliott, a former member of Vineyard's Oklahoma City Church. The person should go to the pastor. The pastor will talk to the offender. You don't report to police because the pastor is the ultimate authority, not the government. End quote. Stuart Hardy was a youth and music pastor at an independent fundamental Baptist church in Michigan. He witnessed the same authoritarian approach. Quote, You can't question your leaders. End quote, Hardy said. And when you can't question your leaders, we've seen it in politics, you know what happens. It's not a good thing. End quote. Hardy left in 2014 and now describes the experience of using one four-letter word. Those of us that have gotten out definitely know it is a cult, he said. The independent fundamental Baptist movement began to grow in the 1950s and 60s as the churches positioned themselves as the true way to Christ in contrast to less conservative churches and a godless secular world. Now this is another one that's another part that I have in bold and underlined. While there's no official count, an online directory assembled by a pastor in Maine lists more than 6,000 independent fundamental Baptist churches in the United States as well as churches in countries from Germany to Nicaragua. And I think that's important to understand the... A lot of times, it's not understood, I think, how big or even how small the movement is. And so I thought that was a very important note. Back to the article. The churches operate independently, but many pastors are linked by the church-affiliated colleges they attend. Bob Jones University, Al's Anderson College, Pensacola Christian College, and Golden State Baptist College, to name a few. I would always also throw in there West Coast Baptist College, Fairhaven Baptist College. There's one in Kentucky, Commonwealth, I think it's called, Commonwealth Baptist College. I'm trying to think. But several others. Back to the article. Friendships are forged at preaching conferences, and just as often, alliances are rearranged when there's a rift. That is so true. So true. Pastors use their connection in this informal network to help abusers find new churches the Star Telegram found. Many of the churches identified by the Star Telegram that have faced abuse allegations are in the Southeast and Midwest, and with most being in, get this, North Carolina, with 17, and Ohio, with 12. Nine of the churches are in Texas, including Open Door Baptist Church in Mesquite. In April, police arrested Pastor Bob Ross on charges that he failed to report the alleged sexual abuse of a minor. A month earlier, one of his ministers and a youth volunteer were jailed on suspicion of sexually abusing children at the church. While many abusers in the ministry are never caught, there's a collection of church officials in prison for their crimes. Carlton Hammonds, who pastored Willows Baptist Church in Willows, California, served three years for molesting four girls from his congregation in the mid-2000s. Three years. In 2012, Joshua Gardner was sentenced to six years for sexually abusing two boys at his parents' church on an American base in Okinawa, Japan. His Minnesota church stood behind him. Two officials at Kettle Moraine Baptist Church in Wisconsin were sentenced to prison for sexually assaulting children at the church's Camp Joy. One of the Camp Joy workers already had a sexual offense conviction. Jim Vineyard would also face misconduct allegations when his leadership by fear style was finally challenged in 2004. Multiple women say the Oklahoma City pastor made sexual comments to them from the 1990s to the 2000s when they were teenagers during one-on-one counseling sessions. The allegations went public when the brother of one of the girls put together a packet of letters and sworn affidavits describing the comments and sent it to the church's deacons. Vineyard, who died in October 2017, denied he'd done anything wrong and led Windsor Hills until 2007. Vineyard's son, Tom, took his place as head of the church. Ross, the pastor from Mesquite, who was arrested in April, had worked for Jim Vineyard in Oklahoma before coming to Texas and has found refuge back in Vineyard's church as he awaits trial. Tom Vineyard and Ross did not respond to requests for comment. Ex-members of Windsor Hills say they've been contacted by Mesquite officers as part of the investigation into Ross. They said police also asked them about allegations that Ross had failed to report abuse when he worked at Windsor Hills. Former IFB church member Joy Evans-Rider Joy Evans-Rider discusses how charismatic personalities of the church leaders make it easier for them to prey on their victims. This is the next section of the article. He does that with everyone, the heading says. In Joy Evans-Rider's mid-1970s church-driven world, skirts had to go past knees, men and women had to be separated by six inches, and good daughter's gift to her father was to save her first kiss for the altar. The father himself, Jack Hiles, was nicknamed the Baptist Pope for the sway he held over the nationwide independent fundamental Baptist movement from his power base in a small town Indiana. His son, David, was tall, skinny, and already balding by his mid-twenties. He had his father eyes that pulled down at the corners. No one would have called him traditionally handsome, but he had his father's ability to make you feel part of the in-crowd with a compliment or sarcastic joke, and he could just as easily push you out with a cutting insult. David, Dave Hiles had taken an interest in Ryder when she was 14, and it scared her. One Sunday morning after service, she stood in line to speak to Jack Hiles, the most important person in her world, about his son's repeated calls to her house. The attention made her uncomfortable, she said. The pastor sat at his desk and took her in for a moment. Joy, you're not special, he said. He does that with everyone, so don't think he's trying to do anything with you, end quote. not long after she was raped by David Hiles. It continued for two years. Reached by phone, Dave Hiles declined to comment. The Star Telegram followed up by sending him a list of written questions. He did not respond. Jack Hiles died in 2001. At 16, Ryder thought about suicide. Fearing she might be pregnant with Dave Hiles' child, she imagined ramming her car into a telephone pole or a tree killing her and the baby. She didn't think about going to police. I went to somebody I thought would be my protector, Ryder said. Not my dad, because it shows you how we were taught to think about our pastor, Dr. Hiles. Dave Hiles had warned her to stay quiet or he'd get her parents fired. Her father was president of Hiles Anderson College. The school started and run from First Baptist Church. Her mother was the school's dean of women. To her friends, Ryder looked happy. She was popular, secure in her social status, and a spot in the church's school-coveted choir called Strength and Beauty. She liked to run off to the mall with friends every chance she got, had her light brown hair feathered, Farrah Fawcett style. But she was so angry and ready to rebel against the system that entrapped her. She sneaked to movies, wore pants, and swiped cigarette backs all verboten in the church. At 17, Ryder snapped. She called her parents from a payphone at the church school and told them to meet her at home. She told them everything. The next time she met Hiles, her father would follow. He drove behind her to a holiday inn and waited in his car as he watched Ryder walk into a first floor room and shut the door. I'm leaving, Ryder told Hiles. He asked what she meant. I'm leaving, she repeated. I told my parents and my dad is outside. Hiles pulled back the curtain, saw her father's car. She says he shoved her against the wall, his forearm pressed on her throat. What have you done to me? You ruined my ministry. How could you do this to me? He let her go and paste the room. Ryder walked out, got in her car, and drove home. Her father followed her. He didn't confront Hiles. He did, however, go to Jack Hiles, who dismissed the report about his son because Ryder's father didn't record Dave Hiles' license plate number. So, the president of your Bible college can't be trusted. That was my comment. Back to the article. Her father dropped the subject. Ryder's father, Wendell Evans, wished he could do it over. He said 35 years later in a notarized statement provided to the Star Telegram, taken because Ryder was seeking evidence to take to the church. At the time of the abuse, Evans' career was blossoming in the church, pushing Hiles, his boss on the allegations would have been difficult, he said. I mean, Hiles and I were still good friends, he said. We marveled sometimes that our friendship survived this situation. But, in an interview with Star Telegram, Evans was not so forgiving of Dave Hiles. He regrets not calling the police on him. I think it's remarkable that in 40 years, Dave didn't find time to ask forgiveness from his victims and their parents, said Evans, now 83. It was not the first time Jack Hiles heard allegations against his son, nor would it be the last. One woman alleged Dave Hiles raped her at 14 when she attended the church's high school, years before Ryder. The woman's 10th grade teacher also confronted Jack Hiles about his son, only to be brushed off. Dave Hiles' ministry wasn't ruined, instead he got promoted. A few months after Evans and Jack Hiles spoke about the encounter at the Holiday Inn, Dave Hiles became the pastor at Miller Road Baptist Church in Garland, Texas. The church's father led before moving to Indiana. Jack Hiles would later say he never recommended his son to any church, but deacons and staffers at Miller Road said their search committee called Jack Hiles about Dave. No one heard any warnings. Two more women would accuse Dave Hiles of molesting them in Texas. One woman, who went to Hiles Anderson for college, said she tried to tell Jack Hiles what had happened. He told her not to tell anyone else. Then, she said, he kicked her out of his office. Four women have accused Dave Hiles of sexual misconduct when they were teenagers. He has never been charged with a crime and now runs a ministry for people who have fallen into sin. Next heading in the article goes the M.O. in fundamentalism. It was a Friday in May 2018 when one of Stacy Shiflett's associate pastors pulled him aside after a staff meeting and said they need to talk and that it was urgent. Shiflett, a native Georgian who had close cropped hair who hasn't lost his southern accent and his penchant for the bulldogs was in his fourth year of pastoring Calvary Baptist Church in Dundalk, Maryland. His predecessor, Cameron Giovinelli, had recommended him for the post and was president of the prestigious Golden State Baptist College in Santa Clara, California where Shiflett's daughter attended. Shiflett, like Giovinelli, he was a funny man with a young family. He'd beaten cancer and written a book about his faith and family. Got him through it. But it was Cameron Giovinelli whom the associate pastor had come to talk to Shiflett about. Giovinelli had allegedly molested the associate pastor's granddaughter Sarah Jackson when she was 16 in 2006. Shiflett called Sarah Jackson, now 29. Jackson told him of kisses in Giovinelli's office, the secret phone he bought her for the church, on the church plan, so they could text of gifts of diamond hoop earrings, he didn't like studs, and how Giovinelli said his wife would never give him oral sex, so it was something special for the two of them. A few hours after her conversation with Shiflett, Sarah Jackson posted her story on Facebook naming Giovinelli. She logged off immediately. shaking, but she felt free. For the first time in years, she wouldn't have to lie. I was raised in a way where you respect your elders and your leaders, she wrote on Facebook. Your pastor in the Baptist faith is pretty much right under God. You trust him with everything, end quote. quote. She then accused Giovinelli of abusing his power to instigate physical and emotional relationship with her. Why now? Well, now I am a mother. I will do whatever I can in my power not to allow something to happen to my son that happened to me as a 16-year-old girl. So this is my story, and with this, I let it go, end quote. Stacy Shifflett, a 45-year-old with 25 years of ministry behind him, hoped the allegations weren't true. But the more he investigated, the more credible Jackson's story became. When Giovinelli resigned from Golden State Baptist College after the abuse allegation went viral, the chancellor of the college and the pastor of its affiliated church asked the congregation to pray for the church, the college, and the Giovinelli family. The pastor, Jack Treber, dressed in a yellow tie and matching pocket square, reached into his pocket to put on his glasses before reading a statement that allegations of inappropriate conduct had been made against Giovinelli. Treber took his glasses off. The video posted on the church website ends. Then, say people who were in attendance, he proceeded to praise Giovinelli. Treber did not respond to interview requests. Reached by phone, Giovinelli said he had no comment and hung up. He did not respond to specific questions that were sent to him. Jackson filed a police report. The investigation is ongoing. Steel Giovinelli found a soft landing at Emanuel Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida, where he is an associate pastor and head of the church's book publications arm. He is supported by the pastor, Greg Neal, and his Twitter feed shows him traveling around the country welcome to churches. Now, this article was written in 2018. Since then, Giovinelli had his trial. He was found guilty, was sentenced, and I believe that happened around November or December. Since then, he's already been released from prison, and he's back in Florida, and I believe he is starting a Bible college there in Florida with Tom Neal. Neal did not respond to requests for comment. Stacey Shifflett saw the video by Jack Treber, the chancellor of Golden State Baptist College. He decided to speak out because he felt Treber downplayed the allegations against Giovinelli. He put up an 18-minute YouTube video recorded in his office, the same office in which Sarah Jackson said Cameron Giovinelli molested her. For Shifflett, the issue was personal. He'd twice been a victim of attempted sexual misconduct in the church world. Both times, people knew about his would-be abuser's behavior and did nothing to stop it. One alleged abuser went on to serve as an administrator in a Christian school in a different state, even after Shifflett warned the school's pastor. He says, quote, it's been the M.O. in fundamentalism for pastors and churches and ministries to just gloss over and sweep under the rug things of absolute epic proportion, he said in the video. The reason why I'm not, why I'm so fervent, so passionate about it this morning is because I relived all of those feelings of what it's like to be abused. And the one that does the abuse is the one that always comes out on the other side smelling like a rose and goes down the road to another church so he can do it again to somebody else. The reaction in the movement was predictable, not that Shifflett cares. Your pastor in the Baptist faith is pretty much right under God. You must trust him with everything. End quote. The father of the man who pastors the Jacksonville church that took Giovanni in retaliated by publishing a piece on his personal website titled, quote, an expose on Stacey Shifflett that called him a self-aggrandizing and a little man and accused him of automatically taking Sarah Jackson's side. As for Jackson, he wrote, he studied her, quote, sordid Facebook page and found her to be, quote, godless, narcissistic, and self-promoting. At Calvary Baptist Church, Shifflett said he's been open with the congregation. They haven't lost a single member since Jackson went public with her allegations, he said. She even went to a church service once with her husband and baby boy. Everyone lined up to give her a hug. It bothers me that men of God will stand up in the pulpit all over this country who say we're going to stand up for the truth, stand up for what's right. They duck and they run and they hide when stuff like this comes out, end quote, Shifflett said in the video holding up his Bible. And that's why people have given independent Baptist a bad name. It happens all the time, but it's not going to happen this time, he said. On July 4th, Cameron Giovinelli put up a YouTube video, now deleted, denying Sarah Jackson's accusations that he began a sexual relationship with her when he was 16 in her Maryland church. He stood in a red Georgia Bulldogs polo in front of palm leaves with his wife. Birds chirped in the background. With these false allegations, God has now brought us to Jacksonville, Florida. He said, Who'd have ever thought Jacksonville, Florida, end quote. He resigned from Golden State for the good of the college, he said, and was excited to start down the new path God had set out for him. Giovinelli's wife stood behind him in a striped t-shirt, eyes on her husband through the three-minute video, nodding. She said nothing. The next section in the article is titled A Forced Apology. Consequences are rare for pastors who cover up abusive behavior. In some cases, the abused are even forced to apologize in front of the congregation. Lisa Meister's pastor listened when she told him that her youth pastor, Mark Chappell, had abused her in Wallingford, Connecticut in the 1980s. Then he let Chappell move to another church. Mark Chappell's alleged misconduct has long been a topic of speculation. in the independent fundamental Baptist community. Ex-fundamentalist message boards had stories about him, but were posted anonymously. Meister, 48 now, and speaking publicly for the first time, met Chappell when she was 15. He was stocky and handsome, with yellow red hair and a mustache. He complimented her lip gloss, her dress, her perfume, and at the time, she liked the attention. When she was 16, she said, he took her to his apartment and kissed her. Eventually, they did everything but penetrative sex. She said, and she cried after. He told her that if she told anyone, she would ruin his life. At 17, feeling like she had no other way to get out of the situation, Lisa Meister tried to kill herself. Sitting in the hospital room, she told her pastor, Stephen Baker, why she did it. Ultimately, Meister's parents and Chappell were asked to appear before the church to repent for their sins. It wasn't said, this man prayed on this girl. This man violated this girl, Meister said. It was put out before the church as two people who sinned together. Like, I was just as guilty as he was in the eyes of the church. When Chappell moved to a new church, Baker said he made the leadership in the new church aware of the allegations. I worked very closely with our leadership and we felt we had tried to do what was in the very best interest of, really, two situations, Baker said, the church and both parties. Nothing in his schooling had prepared Baker for the situation with Meister and Chappell. He'd never heard of the term mandatory reporter, referring to laws that require people in certain professions to report suspected abuse to authorities. In retrospect, he said he should have taken more time to decide what to do and let Lisa Meister's parents know that there were options besides church discipline. Chappell, now pastors freeway Baptist church in Phoenix, Arizona. He is part of one of the most prominent families in the movement. His brother, Paul Chappell, is a pastor and is the president of West Coast Baptist College in Lancaster, California. Mark Chappell did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Meister is married to a Southern Baptist pastor. She's in treatment for depression and has had thoughts of suicide since her first attempt. She wishes she had talked more to her parents about what happened before they died. For a while, she hated religion, but after hearing sermons, she realized it wasn't God who hurt her. It was a man. She said, it made me very distrustful of men. It made me very distrustful of the pastor. The next section is called Continue to Pray. Dave Hiles left victims across the country. They are still in recovery. In the 1970s and 80s, with his dad's church among the biggest in the country, Hiles cut a celebrity like figure in the movement and took advantage of it. Rhonda Cox Lee felt special when Hiles noticed her out of the hundreds of kids who attended his dad's church. The first time anything sexual happened, she said, they were in his office. He sat at his desk. She sat across from him on a chair. He walked around the desk and placed her hand on his groin. Do you feel that? He asked. At first she thought it was some sort of spiritual test. He was a man of God, after all, and even though it felt wrong, he wouldn't have asked her to do anything wrong. Several meetings later, their clothing came off. She was 14. It felt wrong, she said, but she knew, it had to be what God wanted. He compared himself to David in the Bible, and how he was anointed and said, this is what I was supposed to do. Lee said, I was supposed to take care of him because he was the man of God. End quote. Hiles, she said, alternately promised her that they would be together once she turned 18 and warned her not to tell anyone in the church because if she did, the church would split, America would go to hell, and the blood of the unsaved would be on her hands. Brandy Eckwright went to Hiles for counseling at his church in Garland, Texas when she was 18. After being molested as a child, she said he soon took advantage of her, and they had sex for the first time in 1982. Dave, I thought was a god, said Eckwright, who like Lee had never gone public with her allegations against Hiles. I thought if I got pregnant by Dave Hiles, it would be like having God's baby. At 54, Eckwright can barely talk about what happened. She survived three suicide attempts. She works as a cashier and says she can barely hold down the job. In 1984, Hiles left Miller Road Baptist Church in Garland after a janitor found a briefcase stashed with pornography featuring Hiles and married female members of the congregation. Ex-members said he and his new wife went back to live near First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana, and then moved again. Dave Hiles has managed to stay out of handcuffs. Today, he runs a ministry for pastors who have fallen into sin, supported by Family Baptist Church in Columbia, Tennessee, pastored by David Baker. In 2017, Joy Evans Ryder's brother emailed Baker, outlining Hiles' alleged crimes against his sister. Baker took five words to reply, Baker. Thank you for your concern. Baker, a Hiles Anderson College graduate and a military veteran said he thinks Dave Hiles has been unfairly blamed. Hiles, Baker said, is a good man with a strong marriage who has helped many people through his ministry. He's someone who made mistakes years ago, and through that brokenness and God restoring him, wants to use what he's been through to help others. Baker said, I'm not going to debate anybody about those issues. Dave Hiles, with gray hair and a beard, is pictured on his Facebook page in a red polo shirt and square-rimmed glasses similar to the ones of his father so ironically wore. He sends posts in his private Facebook group, fallen in grace ministries, contemplating the nature of sin and restoration. In a September missive forwarded to the Star Telegram, Hiles wrote that he had enemies, people who harassed him and slandered him. In fact, I have come to realize that there is nothing we could do to satisfy them. The more we tried, the less we would satisfy them, he wrote. So what exactly do they want? Joy Heaven's writer, writer, just wants acknowledgement. Joy Evans writer still lives in Indiana. Hiles was never charged. She now has a non-profit to help victims of sexual abuse. Rob Hart, special to the Fort Worth Star Telegram, in March 2014. Writer approached the new pastor of First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana, and asked for an independent investigation into alleged abuses at the church. John Wilkerson had become the pastor the year before, after Jack Howe's successor and son-in-law went to federal prison for sexual abuse of a 16-year-old congregate. Wilkerson is a tall man with a long face and gray hair parted neatly to the side. His sermons are more even in tone than either of his predecessors, who preferred to pace and shout. Writer and Wilkerson spoke on Friday, March 7, 2014. Writer told him everything that had happened with Dave Hiles and said she knew stories of other women. Wilkerson suggested Writer lined him up to tell their stories. The next day, he texted Writer to thank her. He said, quote, Your spirit was Christ-like. But your pain obviously deep, he wrote. I am also saddened by the way Jesus' name has been shamed. Please continue to pray that the Lord gives direction. End quote. Writer hasn't heard from the church in four years. Wilkerson, the church's pastor, did not respond to requests for comment. Writer started out of the shadows with other church abuse victims in 2013. It's a non-profit dedicated to helping sexual abuse survivors, particularly from the independent fundamental baddest movement. Out of the shadows has no physical headquarters, but one day, Writer hopes it will. She spends hours talking to people on Facebook and email, mostly women who are still in the church or have just left. Writer is undaunted. She swears, drinks, and every photo of her on social media shows her smiling, wavy hair in place to frame high cheekbones. 39 years after the day at the Holiday Inn, Writer and her father have a good relationship. She's tried to make it that way and to enjoy her father for who he is. He learned in October he has beginning stage Alzheimer's. They don't talk much about what happened. She lives in Indiana still after years of missionary work in Papua New Guinea and raising three children. Writer has found the anger she couldn't access when she was a teenager about what happened to her and about how Hiles was allowed to move across the country. Like how could I have ever let myself feel special about that? That's another bit of blame you heap on yourself, she said. And then it's a whole other amount of shame because if they can shuffle them on and not help you again, that reinforces that you are not worth it. End quote. That is the article, if you stuck with me. I know it was long, but I think it was necessary. That's the article by Sarah Smith and the Fort Worth Star Telegram. And there are more specific stories of abuse. That right there, and I hate to use this word, but that just highlights what has happened. Not that it's a highlight, but as the article said, there was just 412 that they found that's a problem. I want to take a few minutes, I know this is going long already, but I want to take a few minutes and talk about my experience. I am familiar on a personal level with this situation similar to the ones we read about in the article. I graduated from an IFB college in 2009, and my younger brother had gone a semester there and then moved to North Carolina and got involved in a church. church. My brother was always sort of what I looked at as my best friend, and we always talked about serving God together and going forward in ministry. ministry. We were always researching ministry and talking about things to do in the church. Eventually, the church that he was going to, he was committed to, he was working in a youth group, and the pastor actually hired him on as the youth pastor. So he became the full-time youth pastor at this church, and in 2015, he had been youth pastor there for a few years. My wife was the day out from having our second child. We were there, my parents were with us, the baby was going to be born the next day, we were going to the hospital to be induced. So it was about 8 o'clock at night, our central time, I'm in Tennessee, and we were getting things situated, getting ready to go to bed early because we had to get up at like 4 in the morning to head to the hospital, hospital, and my wife was going to be induced with our second child. And my sister-in-law called me, and I answered the phone, and to her breaking down in tears saying my world's falling apart, immediately my mind, the thoughts of my mind went to, okay, something bad has happened and it has to do with my brother because she's calling me. she went on to tell me that she had found his cell phone and found messages between him and a girl, 13, I think at the time, year old girl, and their youth group. She confronted him about it. At the time, he had lied about the nature of the relationship but said that there was something going on. She left to go to her parents' house just to get out, and then she had called me. And so I basically said, listen, we need to call the pastor, and if he does anything but call the police in the first phone call, you need to call me and we need to get the authorities involved because this is this, we need to call the police. This is what, even at that point, the nature of what he had said that was going on was against the law. And so, she then got off the phone and calls me back and she said that the pastor had just called her. I guess my brother had went over to his house, confessed to him, so we asked her to come over there. Next day, I went to bed and told my wife. We got up the next day to go to the hospital, and my wife was induced. She was going through labor. Had a little bit of break period, and my sister-in-law called me back. Basically, the police showed up. And he confessed he had sexual relations with this teenage girl twice, and the police did an investigation. The next day, he turned himself in. My brother is serving 15 years. At the time of this recording, he's done five years in, and so a couple reasons I wanted to say that. Number one, I wanted to be up front. I'm talking about this subject, but also, while talking about it, I want to be transparent and say this is what's happened in my life. He is my brother, and I still love him. But at the same time, what he did did not make him stop being my brother, but it also did not make me stop being a Christian and a believer and someone that stands up for the abused and cries out for the abused. So where we have to call that out, also, there has to be some room in our ministry for abusers. Now, abusers have to repent. They have to repent. Now, the attitude in the IFB with abusers tends to shield repentance by not holding them accountable. people. The idea of none of these people admitting, standing up, taking, and continuing on in ministry. And we're going to talk about this later on. We're going to talk, I'm going to get into the qualifications of a pastor. The main qualification of a pastor that's repeated several times in the passages on a pastor or elder in a church is above reproach, blameless. explain to me how you can still hold the title of being blameless after doing these types of things. I say that to my brother. I say that to Cameron G. Vanelli. I say that to Dave Hiles. I say that to any of these men. This Matt Chappell guy who's still pastoring, blameless. Now, I say that with fear and trepidation, understanding that I am an elder as well. I'm a pastor as well. And I have to, uh, that standard is upon me, but I do not set that. Man, God sets that standard. We have to please stop lowering the standard for the protection of the flock and holding those who violate that standard in gross manner accountable. Stop feeding it. Stop continuing it on. Call those out. not even those that have committed the crime, but those who facilitate these men to continue on. I saw this happen when I was in college. A staff member who was having an inappropriate relationship with a teenager. That, that, that teenager, that, that young woman has, uh, not felt comfortable, I'm not going to say any names, uh, with that situation because they have not come forward. But that staff member was simply fired and then moved on to another ministry, whereas he should have been arrested. This is a problem. And so part of the podcast is to call for those that have abused to be held accountable. justice, I believe, is a Christian duty. And also, in the future, have guest interviewers, interview some guests and those that can help with those that have been abused. And I, I pray and my desire and my burden is to see those that have gone through these terrible situations, to find the grace of God and the grace of Christ help them in their lives. And so, that is the end of episode number two. I'm going to talk a little bit in the next episode about growing in grace and the scriptures and then I want to get into a little bit, I'm going to do a few episodes I want to do on the history of the IFB movement and that will help us understand a little bit on why it is the way it is. Okay? Thank you so much for listening if you stuck with me through this podcast. I know this was a tough one. And please subscribe to the podcast. Give me a rating, a star rating if you will. And thank you guys. Until next time, all glory be to God. Sola Dei glory. Thank you. Thank you.

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