We are continuing with our Pastors Behaving Badly series where a pastor's lawyer is engaging
in some victim blame. Tao has the story tale No. Yeah, you
know, as soon as I got invited here, I knew that there was
going to be at least one story about a pastor abusing children, because we
have talked about this over and over again. If you don't believe me,
go and check the nonprofits of May thirty, first, two and twenty three.
There we talk about the Catholic Church realizing realizing that Princes has abused many
more children than they could have imagined in Illinois. Or go and do the
same with the first of January of the same year, where we talk about
almost two hundred sexual predators in Kansas only from the Catholic Church. And I
have talked about many of these cases on my own in other shows. For
example, Nason guing Garcia, the leader of the Igleci La Luste Mundo,
the guy Marcel Marcel Masel from Legnarios de Christo in Mexico, he have you
sad almost two hundred children, Fernando Cadavima and Chile who have used hundreds of
children, and the Pope when went to defend this guy, he accused the
victims of slandering because they dare to talk about what happened to them. And
in Argentina there was a whole school of their children who were raped by sorry
priests from the Catholic Church, and the Vatican did nothing. And why does
this happen? Well, because churches suddenly teach people to obey without questioning anything.
They give those guys a lot of power. They put them in positions
when they become untouchable. And that's how we have this story from NBC News
written by Mike Heisenberg and Antonio Hailton, published in July nine, twenty twenty
four, about this guy what's his name? I totally forgot it Robert Morris,
whose lawyer accused a twelve year old child of quotation mark seducing the pastors
so he could ripe her. That's absolutely disgusting. I often asked myself,
how can a child seduce a grown ass man? Well, stop, that's
my question, Aaron. Can you answer that question for me? I can't
because it's not possible. This is, unfortunately, one of the problems with
the culture of Christianity. I don't know if it's worldwide, but it's certainly
in this country. It's this culture that makes women responsible for men's sexuality and
sex acts and things in that nature. You know. Where this guy,
after he was caught he can he preached a message of oh, I have
repented and I have been forgiven. And at one point in the story he
shared the Old Testament story of King David's son Amnon who raped his half sister
and then and instead of presenting it as a cautur taiale against men, like
this is a bad thing to do, he intend instead use it as a
warning against women that allow women does allow men to sleep with them before they
are married. Bile and awful and disgusting. And it's the teaches me that
they're not responsible. They're just sexual beasts, sexual creatures. Whatever they do
and whatever they want, it's okay, and it's up to the other person
to stop them. And it's just it's just disgusting and it needs to stop.
I never quite can wrap my head around any time that a person is
being blamed to the point where they are a child and the person who happened
to be the adult in the situation is saying that the child is responsible for
the adults action, and that's like something that does not happen anywhere, And
to me, it's just a way to move the goal posts so that the
person who actually was the victimizer does not have to be responsible for their action.
Kara, I, I am curious to hear what they How do we
interpret the allegations against Robert Morris and what does this case reveal about the responsibilities
of really's leaders tools or congress, especially mine. Well, yes, I
think this case in particularly reveals that pastors and church leadership have not fulfilled any
kind of moral or ethical or even legal responsibility towards minors in their churches that
are being abused. And the language that we're hearing even after this pastor is
confessing to having done this, or is explaining or trying to excuse himself by
saying, oh, yes, I reported this years ago by telling the church
leadership that I had engaged in a moral failure or in another place he says
inappropriate sexual behavior. These are euphemisms, These are not confessions of wrongdoing.
At no point does he use words like abuse or child molestation or anything that
would make him responsible for the actions. In fact, this type of language
I think we see happen a lot of times in churches, and it very
clearly sets up the situation to where now we can say, oh, this
was a mutual sin or oh, this was something that the pastor was led
into by a sinful usually woman, not always or child, and you can
see it written all over the way it's described, and these moral failures or
inappropriate sexual behaviors are not regarded as disqualifying for someone to be a pastor.
Again, the church leadership in this case mentioned that, oh, yes,
he had confessed that he had had this moral failure in the past, but
he had repented, and so we reinstalled him in a church, and he
now has access again to families, children, women, men, girls,
boys, non binary folks, anybody in this church he now has access to.
And the language that's being used here is being very deliberately deployed to make
it someone else's fault other than his, and something that bugs me a lot
about some churches. I don't know if it's the case in his, but
I know in some evangelical churches. My experience has been that sometimes people are
even encouraged when they're giving their testimonies where they talk about, oh, listen
to how awful I was before because of whatever reason, but after I found
God or I was redeemed by Jesus, you know, now I am not
engaging in these behaviors anymore. And it almost seems like the more atrocious their
previous behavior was, and the more graphic and detailed their testimonials are, the
more praise and adoration they're going to receive. And it almost feels like this
way of talking about this behavior is encouraging it rather than sanctioning it. And
it seems that that is certainly what happened in this case, where at no
point was he held to account for what he actually did. Instead, we're
blaming a twelve year old for his behavior, which is just absolutely disgusting.
And I hope that answered your question. I think I might have gone off
on a little bit of a soapbox there. You know what, soapboxes on
the nonprofits is absolutely required and welcome, just to let you know, but
you made a point there. I was just thinking about my time in the
you know, church, where a big thing that a lot of people who
entered into ministry and also some of the congregants did was like the whole testimony
serving right, and they would give up, and they would talk about like
how much of a wretch undone they were, and all the different salacious behaviors
that they engaged until they found Jesus and then they were absolutely saved by the
blood of the Lamb, the blood, the blood, the blood. And
it just seems that I remember being in the pew listening to some of these,
you know, tales of you know, Gale, and how it seemed
that every other week, if we're doing this like back to back, that
somebody just had to get even more graphic or more horrible, like depending on
what it is that they are testifying. And then you know, being able
to talk about the redemption of Jesus in their life, and and and and
even like some you know pastors who happened to be very famous in the evangelical
circuit are known for their really wretched past, you know, for lack of
their term or sometimes I'm just actually just quoting them, like I was a
wretched undone, I had a wretched pass, I was quite sinful, and
and these are all the things that I did, and I've been redeemed,
And it seems like that for some reason, and I guess like it's maybe
part of the whole tale of the of the Christian mythos, where we had
like two different patriarchs from the Bible who were really horrible to say in the
least with their behaviors, and then you know, God stepped in and redeemed
them, and then they became like, you know, the greatest leader that
ever walked the face of the earth. And it seems like that for some
reason, and I could be wrong, and I would love for you all
tell me, but it just seems like that, you know, the more
horrible the patriarch was, the more praise they were because of how they came
out because of you know, God redeeming them from their past tale. I
know that you introduced this story, and I'm wondering what are your thoughts about
what I just said. And I also want to ask you how do you
feel about the leadership's responsibly of the Gateway Church. I mean, do you
think it was adequate or transparent or not. This is one of those topics
that I took over and over and that they always seek enemy. It's terrible.
I have mentioned before that I'm even surprised that this is so common that
churches have their own insurance for when pastors have used children. And this is
not something that I made up. You can go and check ministry Insured dot
com which has a special page only for churches explaining them how to deal with
abuse mon station and I have here something that I want to quote from.
And this is another one. This is charge law on tax dot com.
They do the same. Actually, there are many, many, many pages
offering insurance against child abuse, specifically for churches, and they have these specific
pages only for churches. And this one says, these days, churches gould
do well to particular to pay particular attention to sexual abus liability coverage, as
child abuses cases involving churches and ministries are on their rise, especially as states
look for ways to extend the time victim have to see justice, almost as
if this was a bad thing. And yeah, sadly, this is so
normal, so common that churches have their own insurance for this, and we
are supposed to see this as something normal, regular and that we should kind
of accept. Now, it makes me sick. It makes me extremely sick.
It's fact extremely disgusting, as Aaron said, And yeah, blaming a
child and saying because worst of all, the situation is this, this guy
was received at the house of this family. The parents obviously very religious people,
were extremely happy to have the father there or pastor or whatever. And
he started calling the child to his room, and of course the parents said
that this child had to obey. So imagine being so such a disgusting piece
of shirt that you're in a room alone, you call this child, tell
this child come here, start touching this child, and you tell the child,
don't tell anyone to your parents. This is between you and me.
And then no, no, of course she seduced me under her parents roof.
It was her responsibility. It's one of those things that makes me extremely
angry and they find extremely disgusting. So yeah, of course, all add
actions that they have taken, just like the ones that they mentioned at the
beginning when I introduce the topic, I think they have always been wrong.
Is extremely disgusting. How churches protect pedophiles. It makes me sick. It
is absolutely insane that we are unable to hold spiritual leaders accountable for their actions,
especially when they take certain assaults against children. It's almost like, not
almost, it is enabling these church leaders to be able to basically wrought violence
against children because when you're assaulting them, even if it's actually it's still violence
to the point where these kids are going to actually feel and be traumatized for
the rest of their lives. I mean the young lady now who regaled or
talked about her abuse when it came to Robert Morris I believe her name is
Cindy Klempshire. She talked about her journey and talked about all the different things
that he did to her and how it's something that still affects her to this
very day, and she is an adult and there is It's absolutely insane to
me and completely unfathomable to me. And I know that I'm going to keep
saying this because like it makes me upset as a parent, as a person
who is in the social sector that you know, when I see abuse,
I am obligated to per report it. Whether it's this elder abuse, adult
abuse, or child abuse, I have to report it. And I don't
understand how myself, being you know, a social worker or any other person
who happens to be in that particular industry or held to that high standard,
but church leaders are not, don't I don't get it, and I don't
really understand what is going to be the thing that's going to change this around,
especially even when you have a lawyer saying that, well, you know
this twelve year old girl seduced is I believe he was twenty one years old
at the time, man, And we already know that children cannot consent to
sex. They cannot consent to sex. They don't have the mental capacity.
They have an undeveloped prefrontal cortex to make higher functioning decisions, so they can't
consent. And the only thing that you can do is groom them and coerce
them to do your bidding. Aaron, what are your thoughts when you think
about Cindy specifically and her seeking justice. But she's still struggling as a victim
of abuse within this religious institution that's still, like, you know, trying
to push to blame on her for the actions of a grown person. I
can't even imagine how difficult it must be for her. From the stories I've
heard from other people, It's like it's like being re abused over and over
again when people won't take responsibility, When people that are responsible don't get protected
and aren't forced to take a account for it. It's just it's like you
you relive it over and over and over again, and so my my,
my heart goes out to her and uh, the courage that she has to
to stand up and try and try and get justice and have her name out
there. I don't know anything about her personal life, she's still involved in
this church or any other church or not. I would be personally, I
wouldn't be. I'd be surprised as she was. But it's it's it's just
it's awful. Yeah, it is awful. And and I'm wondering, Kara,
what do you think is the right thing that you know, the church
could do, Like the church leaders specifically and the ones who happened to be
looking onto this particular case and even seeing like this young lady struggle still to
this day, Like, what are the actions that they should take instead of
just you know, co signing with the lawyer saying that no, she's not
the victim, she is the purpose. Oh absolutely, I think it's actually
very simple. They need to stop coming up with these excuses and lies and
counter allegations against a twelve year old child who was molested and instead take her
seriously her case that she originally brought was asking for money to be compensated for
trauma and counseling services that she has had to receive over the past several decades
as a result of this incident. They need to pay for that, I
think, first and foremost, simply settle the suit for what she's asking,
which is in my opinion not at all unreasonable, and quit spreading slanderous lies
about a twelve year old being responsible for this happening. How about instead take
responsibility and come out and say not, We're going to do everything we can
to deflect and deny and blame and shame and protect this pastor. But how
about call out the sin if they truly believe that this is a sin,
which I certainly hope they do, although they have not convinced us of that
yet by their actions. I think the answer is to say, we do
not support this, we do not condone this, this will not take place,
and here are the steps that we're going to take to put in place
measures to ensure that nothing like this happens. And it's going to take a
lot more than just statements, because, as we've seen in the story,
there's this culture of talking about sexual abuse in a way that is shameful towards
the people who have been abused, and in a way that causes victims to
not feel comfortable coming forward and know that they're going to be blamed and put
under a microscope and told that, oh, well, everything you did was
you know, lust inducing, and you were a stumbling block and everything else.
They need to take serious steps to get rid of that attitude all together
in their congregation, in their communities. This needs to come to a stop,
and it needs to be taken very very seriously, and they need to
start taking action on that now. And as leaders, it's their job to
not be demonstrating that attitude. They need to be demonstrating the opposite attitude,
which is saying this is unacceptable, and these men will be held accountable and
whoever has done it, and in this case it was a man and it
often is, are going to be held accountable for their own actions. And
we're not going to be blaming and shaming people for being on the receiving end
of them. And that's how leadership needs to be demonstrating what will take place.
Now. Do I think that's what is going to happen? No?
I do not. Yeah, and tayl I am going to leave view the
final safe and see you went ahead and brought it to Stone. Well,
everything that they have done has been disgusting. All the people involving defending this
pastor are disgusting. If you go and ask the lawyer now, what does
he have to say on his defense, he says that he doesn't remember when
he said that. There is a letter that they've clim Shire this girl received
from the wife of this Morris guy. That is her name, She's and
her letter saying I forgive you for what you are doing. Like she feels
that the person that her husband rage is the problem and not that she's raped
to sorry that she's married to a rapist. I think she's disgusting. I
think everyone defending this poster is disgusting, and I feel really sick to think
that there will be people trying to defend and justify this monster who decided to
appuse a child using his his position of power. Well, overall, from
a humanist secular standpoint, the focus should be on supporting survive, ensuring accountability
for the perpetrators, and advocating for institutional reform that prioritize the protection and well
being all individuals, especially the most wrong Sindy's courage and coming forward underscores the
importance of transparent and accounty and addressing abuse within realist cont