Speaker 1: We are now heading to Texas where our pastor is
Speaker 1: confessing to moral failing, or as we say here at
Speaker 1: the nonprofits, just another Wednesday. Eli has the story, Hey Eli,
Speaker 1: what say you?
Speaker 2: Heys Cynthia, I say In Frisco, Texas, Tony Kimerotis serves
Speaker 2: as the pastor for Stonebrier Community Church for over eleven
Speaker 2: thousand members, or at least he did until he confessed
Speaker 2: a moral failure to the church leadership, which rendered him
Speaker 2: unfit for the cloth in the church's opinion. It is
Speaker 2: also the church's opinion that discussing the event at all
Speaker 2: is like foosball the devil. In a letter to congregants,
Speaker 2: the church leadership urged members not to allow the devil
Speaker 2: making it worse through any one of us end quote, highlighting,
Speaker 2: of course, that if you step one toe out of line,
Speaker 2: you will be lightly tortured, but only for eternity. This
Speaker 2: isn't the first megachurch pastor in that corner of Texas
Speaker 2: to leave their positions since just the beginning of last June,
Speaker 2: and I have to say it's nice that they're finally
Speaker 2: giving other people a chance to take advantage of all
Speaker 2: those church members. This story is from The New York
Speaker 2: Post by Alex OLIVERA on July sixteenth, twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: You know, I think, Eli, the problem was is that
Speaker 1: that you know, this particular pastor did not know how
Speaker 1: to shut d dough to keep out d devil, shut
Speaker 1: the dough in the middle of the night.
Speaker 3: I think we're making different references, but I like yours too.
Speaker 3: I practice, are you going to bring in the song
Speaker 3: right here on the non profits?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: And if I had room, I will put in a dance,
Speaker 1: But unfortunately I don't. Well, we'll implore my son to
Speaker 1: come back later and he can do it for you.
Speaker 1: But guys, we actually have a discussion to do. So
Speaker 1: let's let's bring it on back. And since you had
Speaker 1: the last word, Eli, I'm going to come back to you.
Speaker 1: I wanted to know what are some of the potential
Speaker 1: reasons that a pastor might step down due to moral failures.
Speaker 2: So here's like the logical chain of events that I
Speaker 2: that I follow backwards basically, right, I think if he
Speaker 2: just did something that he's like, oh, I shouldn't have
Speaker 2: done that, there wouldn't be a conversation about this. Somebody,
Speaker 2: a congregant probably caught him doing something that he shouldn't
Speaker 2: been doing, or perhaps another like one of the church leaders.
Speaker 2: But how I followed it was like a congregant catches
Speaker 2: him doing something he's not supposed to be doing. It's like, well,
Speaker 2: I better come clean, do like the leaders, because it's
Speaker 2: going to come out and also be like, hey, this
Speaker 2: person saw it, so everybody's going to find out. And
Speaker 2: that's why they're like trying to dissuade people from like
Speaker 2: talking about it. The other thought I had is the
Speaker 2: only reason he would like maybe not the only reason,
Speaker 2: but another reason that he would go straight to them,
Speaker 2: and like they're also involved, like as the article mentions,
Speaker 2: like there's three other megachurch pastors in the area in
Speaker 2: like the Dallas Fort Worth area. Tony Evans Oak Oak
Speaker 2: Cliff Bible Fellowship in the beginning of June. A week
Speaker 2: after that, Mike Buster of Preston Wood Baptist Church he
Speaker 2: denied any wrongdoing Tony Evans. He said he committed no
Speaker 2: crime but failed to use righteous judgment. And then Robert
Speaker 2: Morris of Gateway Church four days after Mike Buster stepped down,
Speaker 2: I'm in allegations of long term sexual abuse of a
Speaker 2: minor lasting a very long time, beginning when she was
Speaker 2: twelve years old. So it reeks of cover up. And
Speaker 2: there it's it's it seems like the churches thing, we
Speaker 2: don't want any hear any rumors about what happened. It's
Speaker 2: not rumors. Somebody knows, and the news is going to
Speaker 2: spread and they're using eternal threats to terrify people into
Speaker 2: protecting this guy's reputation.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I know that there you're particularly saying
Speaker 1: that you know, there's some type of cover of some
Speaker 1: type of conspiracy theory that's happening. But you know, I
Speaker 1: think the Scott said in another perspective could be another burger.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, if if if we want to be
Speaker 3: fair here, you know, from one perspective, there's you know,
Speaker 3: this is just nothing. There's a nothing burger, right, This
Speaker 3: is nothing, nothing really interesting.
Speaker 1: That I was trying to say, is nothing nothing right there?
Speaker 3: The I mean, churches are private organizations and they can
Speaker 3: hire and fire, you know, within legal limits of whoever
Speaker 3: they want, right, and we don't know what happened, and
Speaker 3: we don't know if it was illegal or harmful. We
Speaker 3: know that religious moral codes can be rather obscure and
Speaker 3: and uh separated and departed from what we would normally
Speaker 3: consider to be a moral activity. And so leaving for
Speaker 3: moral condition, you know, under for moral reasons could be
Speaker 3: or a moral failing, sorry, could be something rather benign.
Speaker 3: And so so I just want to make sure that
Speaker 3: we uh don't jump to conclusions here. However, however, on
Speaker 3: the other hand, there's a big butt here, there's a
Speaker 3: big butt. But on the other hand, there is a
Speaker 3: history here of this type of thing happening. There's a
Speaker 3: history here of this type of thing being covered up.
Speaker 3: It's very common that like, for example, why did they
Speaker 3: expose so much as much as they did? You know,
Speaker 3: why did they say as much as they did? You know,
Speaker 3: very commonly we'll see things like they'll say that the
Speaker 3: person left to spend time with their family, or their
Speaker 3: path of God has led them elsewhere. There were lots
Speaker 3: of more benign ways of describing this. Why why would
Speaker 3: they give as much detail as they did. They didn't
Speaker 3: give a ton of detail, but they did, you know,
Speaker 3: imply that something negative or something untoward was happening here.
Speaker 3: And so so we can wonder why they did that.
Speaker 3: As long as we make sure that we're clear that
Speaker 3: we're not leveling any accusations and things like that. But
Speaker 3: we also can look at well, why pull out the
Speaker 3: big guns, right? They said, and this is a quote
Speaker 3: from the letter. It says, and please guard against the
Speaker 3: devil any foothold for more damage to our church through
Speaker 3: unnecessary speech and speculation. This is a sad day and
Speaker 3: we don't want the devil making it worse through anyone
Speaker 3: of use in these days ahead. And so, like I said,
Speaker 3: that's the big guns. Right. If they're saying, if you
Speaker 3: do something like this, or if you talk about this,
Speaker 3: or if you spread these words, you're doing the devil's work.
Speaker 3: That's a heavy hit. That's a heavy hit to a
Speaker 3: religious congregation. And so you know why why it seems
Speaker 3: like a pretty strong reaction if it was, if it
Speaker 3: was a benign action. They're equating what they're talking. They're
Speaker 3: equating talking about the issue with actions of the devil.
Speaker 3: And that's as serious as you as you can get.
Speaker 3: If you're one of us, you have to behave this way.
Speaker 3: If you're not one of us, you'll behave differently. And
Speaker 3: so you know, we need to guard against jumping to conclusions.
Speaker 3: I think it's fair for us to indulge in a
Speaker 3: little bit of conjecture here based off of building off
Speaker 3: of this history of much worse things happening, as long
Speaker 3: as you know, as long as we kind of take
Speaker 3: those two things in equal measure, well.
Speaker 1: To your point, the moral failing if we're going to conjecture,
Speaker 1: could be that the pastor all of a sudden aligns
Speaker 1: with left wist wing values and he's woke.
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely, you know.
Speaker 1: That that could definitely be a thing. Yes, yes, and
Speaker 1: he could possibly support DEI hires perish the thought.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we want no never, never.
Speaker 1: In a million years. But Jonathan, I'm coming to you
Speaker 1: because you actually happened to see a pattern going on
Speaker 1: with some pastors in Texas. Do you not?
Speaker 4: Yeah? I do. I'm just the megachurches apparently, and I
Speaker 4: don't and just my bias, I don't have a lot
Speaker 4: of respect for megachurches. To me, there's really just my
Speaker 4: making machines for a bunch of con men. But you know,
Speaker 4: they had four resignations in a thirty two day period
Speaker 4: in Texas, nothing but a vague reference to misconduct in one,
Speaker 4: one for pedophilia. Yep. These guys speak for their God,
Speaker 4: all right. I wish these were isolated incidence, but it's
Speaker 4: not the only only Baptist or Protestant churches. It's everybody
Speaker 4: has these incidences, and they almost always involve children. Now
Speaker 4: this again, as Scott said, no jumping to conclusions here.
Speaker 4: He could have just simply, I don't know, got caught
Speaker 4: picking his nose and that was a moral failing, you know,
Speaker 4: But that's not what I think.
Speaker 3: Maybe he has a crushed testicle and he's no longer
Speaker 3: allowed near the altar. Maybe that's it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it could be all sorts of ridiculous moral failings
Speaker 4: that some of these very evangelical devout by. Maybe he
Speaker 4: failed to inform the congregation that he had a disobedient
Speaker 4: child and didn't stone them, you know, could be all
Speaker 4: sorts of things. But the whole idea that this many
Speaker 4: there might and I'm not being thinking there's a conspiracy.
Speaker 4: I think it's just endemic in the culture of these
Speaker 4: churches that people have to hide who they are. And
Speaker 4: having been somebody who did that for a great portion
Speaker 4: of my life, I know how much pressure that develops.
Speaker 4: Eventually it breaks out. They have that non kosher ice cream,
Speaker 4: you know, they have that forbidden piece of cake, you know,
Speaker 4: or they do something more severe that in this particular
Speaker 4: environment is going to mean you're gone, buddy. You know,
Speaker 4: we can't have that example for our masses, and they're
Speaker 4: all huge masses. One of those congregations is over one
Speaker 4: hundred thousand people. Imagine that that's bigger than most cities,
Speaker 4: you know, small cities.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: It's like, that's a lot bigger than the town I'm
Speaker 4: in and the surrounding town's put together. So when you
Speaker 4: think about this, this seems to be happening to a
Speaker 4: certain section, a certain subset of the pastors, and they
Speaker 4: all have megachurches or is that a bias that was
Speaker 4: in the reporting? The smaller churches we probably don't care about.
Speaker 4: And I'm beginning to think that that was probably a
Speaker 4: bias in how the news cycle goes. In other words,
Speaker 4: a megachurch with all these people in it, something happens,
Speaker 4: and it's big news for the town because almost everybody's
Speaker 4: a member of that. But for the smaller churches, the
Speaker 4: chapel on the side maybe had their guy do something
Speaker 4: really nasty and nobody hears about it because it's just
Speaker 4: not a big deal. It's on the police blodder for
Speaker 4: that week and fades out of the memory. So I
Speaker 4: just think that that's what we have to be looking
Speaker 4: at as well. But what is going on here? I
Speaker 4: can't say, but there's something going on here. They think
Speaker 4: they're invulnerable and they're doing stuff they should and they're
Speaker 4: getting caught.
Speaker 1: Well to well to your point, oh dear, Indeed, there
Speaker 1: is this particular moral code that Christians are supposedly supposed
Speaker 1: to live by. And I know that like all of
Speaker 1: us here are secular, all of us here are atheists
Speaker 1: and have been confronted in some ways or another about well,
Speaker 1: where do you get your morals from? And you know,
Speaker 1: we have different answers for that. However, when you are
Speaker 1: a person that believes in God and believes that God
Speaker 1: happens to be the way, the truth, the life, and
Speaker 1: you're supposed to follow all of the words that happens
Speaker 1: to be in his book, a lot of times those
Speaker 1: words can be antithetical to how one is naturally, So
Speaker 1: a lot of times that happens to be the case,
Speaker 1: and you find yourself and I know, like I believe
Speaker 1: that all of us want at one time I were
Speaker 1: some form a Christian that we would start to fight
Speaker 1: our cognitive dissonance because naturally we are one way, but
Speaker 1: the book says that we need to be in another way.
Speaker 1: And I believe because we've covered stories like this, some
Speaker 1: pastor did some shitty thing and now everybody's up in arms.
Speaker 1: And to your point, Jonathan, the mega pastor is just
Speaker 1: more visible, so they get talked about more when something
Speaker 1: happens instead of like, you know, your Tom Brown church
Speaker 1: on the corner in the neighborhood where only you know
Speaker 1: a few blocks may be familiar with whoever the Angel
Speaker 1: of the house is there. Right, But it's not that
Speaker 1: a mega church would make this moral failing better or worse.
Speaker 1: It just means that that's where that moral flailing happen.
Speaker 1: But I want to know, Eli, I'm coming to you,
Speaker 1: what do you think a role would be of watchdog
Speaker 1: groups like watchkeep dot org And how would it play
Speaker 1: in holding church leadership accountable for their actions.
Speaker 2: So this whole resonate like this story, like Tony Cameron's resignation,
Speaker 2: basically reminded me of the practice we see in the
Speaker 2: Catholic Church all the time to just like relocate somebody
Speaker 2: who did something, or like in plenty of other churches,
Speaker 2: is like, okay, well, you know, we'll kind of remove
Speaker 2: you from like the spotlight until like the person is,
Speaker 2: you know, twelve years older than they are now or something,
Speaker 2: and they forget about it, which isn't going to happen,
Speaker 2: but that's what they think. And then they put them
Speaker 2: right back in front of you. And having these watchtones
Speaker 2: groups that would like watchdog dot org has the is
Speaker 2: intended to have the list of all the background checks
Speaker 2: of all the clergy that have complied a background check,
Speaker 2: I mean something like that, to say like, yeah, this
Speaker 2: person has been convicted of these things. Then you can
Speaker 2: decigne if you want your family to be around and
Speaker 2: learning from those people and the families that may be
Speaker 2: affected by Let's say something untowards did take place in
Speaker 2: Tony Camroda's place, which I appreciate the three of you
Speaker 2: making it clear, like you know, it's important not to
Speaker 2: speculate or or make assumptions or conject about crimes. But
Speaker 2: let's say something on towards did take place and it
Speaker 2: affects some of the people in the congregation. Having had
Speaker 2: that knowledge beforehand, could have you know, protected this family
Speaker 2: or you know, whoever may have been affected from that
Speaker 2: trauma or that experience. Had they had, had they been
Speaker 2: armed beforehand with the knowledge to make a more informed decision.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that when we think about keeping church
Speaker 1: leadership accountable, I think that far too often, especially like
Speaker 1: in megachurches, it's very dictatorial. I love saying that word
Speaker 1: every nonprofits and I'm just getting better at every time
Speaker 1: that I say it, even though I say it slow
Speaker 1: yay me. Regardless, there's this hierarchy that's there and whatever
Speaker 1: say ye the pastor, that's what goes and you can't
Speaker 1: question it because the pastor almost serves like a proxy
Speaker 1: to God, just like the pope does in the Catholic Ture.
Speaker 1: I know it was very much so like that when
Speaker 1: I was centered, and it makes it very difficult for
Speaker 1: the people who has the butt in a pew to
Speaker 1: be that watchdog to say like, hey, pastor, you shouldn't
Speaker 1: do that. Hey pastor, you need to be more vigilant
Speaker 1: on how your actions occur, you know. But like they say, well,
Speaker 1: they will tell you that old adage that's in the Bible,
Speaker 1: touch not my anointed, didn't do my profits no harm.
Speaker 1: That's just a good way just to tell you to
Speaker 1: shut the fuck up. And that should not be the case.
Speaker 1: That that should not be the case. But you know,
Speaker 1: it's kotint of gonna come to you because I want
Speaker 1: to know from you. How do you think I touched
Speaker 1: on a little bit more, but you know, expand on
Speaker 1: a little bit. How do you think religious teachings about sin, forgiveness,
Speaker 1: and redemption come into play in situations involving pastoral moral fail.
Speaker 3: Well, for one thing, it's hard for us to really
Speaker 3: tell because there's such a lack of transparency. I mean,
Speaker 3: you know, we we're not being shared the proper information,
Speaker 3: the complete information. And maybe we deserve to be shared,
Speaker 3: you know, maybe we deserve to know that, maybe we don't.
Speaker 3: But I think that you know, that lack of transparency
Speaker 3: and the lack of desire for transparency. You were mentioning
Speaker 3: some quotes from from the Bible there that basically instruct
Speaker 3: the congregation to just go along with whatever the leadership
Speaker 3: says to do. And so, uh, you know, from their perspective,
Speaker 3: they're fulfilling their end of the bargain. They're they're they're
Speaker 3: doing what they're supposed to do. They're they're doing, you know,
Speaker 3: their side of the deal. They're submitting to the to
Speaker 3: the church, to their God, and and they consider that
Speaker 3: to be a good thing. And I think whether it's
Speaker 3: being intentionally taken advantage of or whether it's inadvertently being
Speaker 3: taken advantage of, I think it is being taken advantage of.
Speaker 3: I mean, we we we talk about how we have
Speaker 3: so many of these stories happening, and very often we
Speaker 3: do that some of the details do come out, whether
Speaker 3: that be improper sexual advancements, whether that be some kind
Speaker 3: of financial theft or you know, or any any of
Speaker 3: a variety of ways that church leadership could be taking
Speaker 3: advantage of the situation. And so I think that it's
Speaker 3: it's something that's part of the of the concept of
Speaker 3: religion itself, that idea of don't question, just do and
Speaker 3: and by by by bowing and in obedience to the
Speaker 3: church leadership, they see that as a way of honoring
Speaker 3: their God. And so that's that's that kind of feeds
Speaker 3: into that. Now, does that is that going to attract predators? Yes,
Speaker 3: it's going to Is that going to encourage people who
Speaker 3: maybe wouldn't be a predator otherwise to kind of lean
Speaker 3: in that direction? Possibly? Possibly? And so it's just a
Speaker 3: risky situation. It's it's an unfounded trust put on people
Speaker 3: that are human beings and that are you know, we're atheists.
Speaker 3: We don't think that they're envoys of God or being
Speaker 3: you know, the avatar or representative of God, or however
Speaker 3: you want to describe it. However you want to put
Speaker 3: a label on that. We you know, they're just people,
Speaker 3: and so we should expect them to have uh, normal
Speaker 3: everyday shortcomings. And if the it's it's it's the religion
Speaker 3: that clouds that. It's the religion. It's the act of
Speaker 3: having something that's sacred like that, and that cannot be
Speaker 3: questioned and that cannot be addressed. It's just it's almost inevitable.
Speaker 3: You know, it's hard to imagine that it wouldn't happen.
Speaker 1: I hear that. And I'm coming to you for the
Speaker 1: last word. Since you went ahead and brought this story
Speaker 1: to our attention, if you were able to sit in
Speaker 1: front of the governing body of Tony Cameroda's church and
Speaker 1: was able to give them some advice on how they
Speaker 1: can develop better policies and procedures to actually address moral
Speaker 1: failings of their leaders, what would you tell them?
Speaker 2: I mean, I have It would depend I guess on
Speaker 2: sort of the nature of what types of moral failings
Speaker 2: they are, their experience, their moral failures they're experiencing. If
Speaker 2: it's I mean, is this a church code moral failing, well,
Speaker 2: then I mean that's just what you think is moral.
Speaker 4: There's not.
Speaker 2: I mean, you can change that, but you probably won't.
Speaker 2: We can talk about it, but I probably won't change
Speaker 2: your mind. I think in the instances where maybe not
Speaker 2: this particular instance, but where crimes have taken place or
Speaker 2: have alleged to be taken place, to actually report those
Speaker 2: to the appropriate authorities and get the victims of those crimes,
Speaker 2: if there is one present in the congregation, support and
Speaker 2: actually like address it, rather than the vague descriptions of
Speaker 2: you know, somebody did something bad, but you better not
Speaker 2: talk about it and just kind of moving on.
Speaker 1: Well, you know. The resignation of Pastor Tony Kamarota and
Speaker 1: the subsequent handling of the situation by the So and
Speaker 1: Buyer Community Church serves as a reminder of how the
Speaker 1: importance of transparency and accountability in leadership, and by fostering
Speaker 1: environment of open dialogue and critical inquiry, communities can better
Speaker 1: address ethical breaches, support those who are in fact who
Speaker 1: are affected and work towards a more just and equitable society.
Speaker 1: And on a side note, moral failings is a so
Speaker 1: so subjective, such a subjective term, And if we're going
Speaker 1: to be objective about what a failing is, first, let's
Speaker 1: start by allowing people to be who they are.